âTHE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB is a clearing house for the best detective and mystery stories chosen for you by a select committee of experts. Only the most ingenious crime stories will be published under the THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB imprint. A special distinguishing stamp appears on the wrapper and title page of every THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB bookâthe Man with the Gun. Always look for the Man with the Gun when buying a Crime book.â
Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.,1929
Now the Man with the Gun is back in this series of COLLINS CRIME CLUB reprints, and with him the chance to experience the classic books that influenced the Golden Age of crime fiction.
COLLINS CRIME CLUB
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Eveleigh Nash 1916
Published by The Detective Story Club Ltd for Wm Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1930
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1930, 2018
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008137717
Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008137724
Version: 2018-04-17
FOR the lover of a really exciting detective story, here is good fare. For those a little tired of New Yorkâs Underworld, here is more familiar ground: west-end streets and restaurants; respectable suburban villas; purlieus of Bloomsburyâan east-end we know to be true. Here are no puppets, but human, vivid figures playing out a drama of love and hate and greed, the sleuths of Scotland Yard hot on their trail and the shadow of the hangmanâs noose before their eyes.
Ex-Superintendent Frank Froëst tells his story in a straightforward way. There are no hidden clues, no sudden dénoue-ments to put the reader deliberately on a false trail. He shares the excitement of the hunt, knows all there is to know, and has every chance to spot the murderer and solve the mystery of the forged cheques.
The adventures of Jimmie Hallett are sufficiently exciting in all conscience to satisfy the most exacting of detective story âfansâ. Against a familiar London background, we have here a tale of breathtaking adventureâknifing, arson, racing-taxicabs, and shooting-to-kill. Can Weir Menzies, that genial detective with the churchwarden manner, even with all the resources of Scotland Yard behind him, succeed in outwitting a gang of international crooks of whose very numbers he is ignorant?
His efforts to unravel the tangle lead him to the unsavoury atmosphere of Shadwell and the docks. His quarry, after slipping through the cordon of police, is run to earth in a Chinese opium den. There is a cellar in Brixton, a furiously-driven taxi with a dead woman for fareâin fact, a constant succession of thrills.
Apart from the tale, to make the acquaintance of Mr Weir Menzies is a pleasure in itself. Weir Menzies, the model husband, the respectable and respected citizen of Tooting, with his dog and his roses and his dislike of late hours; Weir Menzies, with his calm, unhurried manner, refusing to be rushed, refusing to be ruffled, relying on perseverance and dull routine and plain common sense. Surely here is a detective after everyoneâs heart.
Detection as a science and not a freak accomplishment is expounded in this story with a wealth of convincing argument. As a vindication of official procedure it is worth reading alone. It is written with genuine knowledge of the methods of police detection, sometimes dull and laborious in themselves: the careful sitting of a mass of irrelevant detail; the intelligent consideration given to the most trivial scrap of information; the interesting survey of the case from time to time by highly-placed officials (the C.I.D. believes firmly that two heads are better than one, and sometimes three than two); then finally the close and oft-repeated scrutiny of the points of the case when it takes definite shape in their hands, to ensure that it is proof against the slings and arrows of the defending counsel.