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daja57's review against another edition
2.0
This is the sequel to Wallace's debut novel, The Four Just Men, starring three of the original quartet (Manfred, Gonsalez and Poiccart) who recruit a fourth whose alias is Courtlander. The FJM are vigilantes dedicated to murdering those who are getting away with criminal activities (a bit like the eponymous hero of the Saint books by Leslie Charteris). In this novel they are up against the Red Hundred, an anarchist group. Various adventures ensue while Scotland Yard looks on helplessly. Finally, justice having been meted out and a proposed assassination averted, Manfred is captured while meeting his arch-rival and potential love interest The Woman of Gratz. He is tried for murder and convicted. Can he escape the hangman's noose?
It is a naive thriller relying on expert chemists creating swift-acting poisons and wonderful explosives, me who are masters of disguise, fluent in many languages, rich and well-supplied with information from a huge range of naturally impeccable sources. Modern readers are usually too sophisticated to suspend their disbelief so easily. But it does give wonderful insights into London in the year before the First World Wars, a place well used to terrorist 'outrages' (through bombs being dropped from Zeppelins were a little premature), a country where anarchists held their conferences and everyone had access to a revolver.
Told in mostly simple language, in short chapters, with a very direct style in which 'tell' is often privileged over 'show', this is very easy to read. With the exception, perhaps, of the Woman of Gratz, the characters are one-dimensional and clearly divided into goodies and baddies, despite the moral ambiguity of making vigilante outlaws the heroes. (But on the other hand, what else is the classic English folk hero Robin Hood?) There is an even-handedness in making both heroes and villains exotic foreigners which was rarely emulated in contemporary and subsequent alternatives, such as Sexton Blake and James Bond where the English goody commonly battles baddies from abroad. The fundamental motivation for continuing to read is not to find out whether the heroes will eventually triumph but to solve the convoluted puzzle of how they will achieve their aims. The focus is therefore on why a huge hole has appeared in the building in which two bodies are found, why a strange house has been constructed in the Spanish countryside, and how Manfred will effect his escape?
It is a naive thriller relying on expert chemists creating swift-acting poisons and wonderful explosives, me who are masters of disguise, fluent in many languages, rich and well-supplied with information from a huge range of naturally impeccable sources. Modern readers are usually too sophisticated to suspend their disbelief so easily. But it does give wonderful insights into London in the year before the First World Wars, a place well used to terrorist 'outrages' (through bombs being dropped from Zeppelins were a little premature), a country where anarchists held their conferences and everyone had access to a revolver.
Told in mostly simple language, in short chapters, with a very direct style in which 'tell' is often privileged over 'show', this is very easy to read. With the exception, perhaps, of the Woman of Gratz, the characters are one-dimensional and clearly divided into goodies and baddies, despite the moral ambiguity of making vigilante outlaws the heroes. (But on the other hand, what else is the classic English folk hero Robin Hood?) There is an even-handedness in making both heroes and villains exotic foreigners which was rarely emulated in contemporary and subsequent alternatives, such as Sexton Blake and James Bond where the English goody commonly battles baddies from abroad. The fundamental motivation for continuing to read is not to find out whether the heroes will eventually triumph but to solve the convoluted puzzle of how they will achieve their aims. The focus is therefore on why a huge hole has appeared in the building in which two bodies are found, why a strange house has been constructed in the Spanish countryside, and how Manfred will effect his escape?
tobyyy's review against another edition
4.0
Unread shelf project 2023: book 46.
I love the Four Just Men and how Wallace writes with such dry wit! These are NOT fast reading books but they are very entertaining as long as I can focus well enough to “digest” the content!
I love the Four Just Men and how Wallace writes with such dry wit! These are NOT fast reading books but they are very entertaining as long as I can focus well enough to “digest” the content!
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