Customer Reviews

Jack O' Judgment

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of Wallace's extraordinary thrillers with an over the top villain. The unctuous master criminal Colonel Boundary. The Colonel receives an envelope in the mail that contains a playing card, knave of clubs and wrote on it Jack o'Judgment. Stafford King had devoted his time to smashing the Colonel's gang. The Colonel was accused of robbing a merchant of sixty thousand pounds by means of card tricks. Cocaine, dope fiends, gambling, show girls, and stage-door Johnnies add tricky obstacles and frightening drama. The action is fast paced and justice is done.

This is a review of the free Kindle edition.

The Boundary gang deals in blackmail. But not in the manner you expect. Instead of demanding money, they buy your business or land, but on the cheap. This helps to make it much more harder to accuse them of blackmail, Col. Dan Boundary is just a good businessman. Living on human misery, Col. Boundary is a true villain, one of the stronger ones I can think of.

Enter Jack O' Judgement. This masked vigilante becomes the Nemesis of the Boundary gang, haunting them at every turn. He's clearly determined to bring the gang down, or die trying. This story is also interesting in that the main female lead just happens to be a male impersonator....Hmm....

If you like a tale of Revenge, this is it. Easy recommendation and only about 2,900 locations long. And this story packs it in.

While not my favorite mystery of Edgar Wallace's (that would either be ANGEL OF TERROR or THE MAN WHO KNEW), this certainly is a good, fast-paced thriller. The villain, Colonel Boundary, isn't as interesting as I'd hoped he would be, and Jack O'Judgement is an idea that isn't as well executed as I hoped (his plans and backstory are cool).

But the set-pieces are rather enjoyable, as is the plotting. And the sentimentality isn't overdone.

This book held my interest like no other has for a long time. Not only was it well-written (very update considering the period it was written), but it was amazing to me that Wallace could pack in all those details and still keep the story moving.

I nearly always have a strong feeling about whodunit and maybe the reason I was so surprised was that we already knew whodunit and the real mystery was WHO WAS JACK O' JUDGMENT?

I agree with another reviewer that the story ends the way we want it to, not only for the police detective and his girl but for a couple of the not-so-bad crooks.