The Mind of Mr J.G. Reeder

Publisher's Summary

The enigmatic Mr Reeder investigates eight cases involving baffling burglary and blackmail, mendacious and merciless murderers, and cruel convicts and convincing cons, using his criminal mind to solve these unusual and peculiar mysteries.

A lot of his inquiries involve Margaret Belman, a very pretty and appealing young lady who lives nearby, and the detective finds himself more and more attracted to this femme fatale. Surely these feelings cannot be mutual....

Public Domain (P)2012 Assembled Stories

Impossible Not to Be Thrilled by Edgar Wallace

That’s the verdict of Lucius Pim, Bertie Wooster’s rival for the hand of Gwladys Pendlebury in P. G. Wodehouse’s short story, “Jeeves and the Spot of Art”. And I’ve always wondered who Edgar Wallace was and exactly how thrilling his output is.

Turns out he was the author of almost a thousand short stories, over 170 novels, and the man behind the whole concept of King Kong. While the story Lucius Pim is reading involves a cobra dropped down a heroine’s chimney, the Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder is somewhat less melodramatic—but no less satisfying.

If anything, these stories succeed by playing with our expectations of what a thriller should be (one is even titled, "Sheer Melodrama"). Middle-aged, quaintly dressed, somewhat fussy, Mr. Reeder falls into that class of fictional detectives who don’t look the part. His methods are just as innocuous; for example, faced with a mortal threat from a gang leader, Mr. Reeder defuses the situation with a series of quiet, well-timed meetings with his erstwhile nemesis. True, the final story involves some classic peril in a cellar, but overall I was vastly entertained rather than petrified, a sensation due in large part to Peter Joyce’s pitch-perfect performance.

And yet, with all that going for it, this book loses one star for organization: these eight stories are spread over three two-hour "chapters", none of which bear any relation to where the stories start or stop.

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