Customer Reviews

Mr. Justice Raffles

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For those following the exploits of A.J. Raffles & his amanuensis, the faithful Bunny Manders, this novel-length edition is a great augmentation to the Raffles oeuvre. Raffles finds his young friend, Teddy Garland, in embarrassed financial straits. Through extricating Teddy, Raffles & the inexorable Bunny find themselves matching wits with Dan Levy, a notorious loan shark. This incident proves to be a catalyst to the series of thrilling events which pit Dan Levy, a cunning foe, against our staunch anti-hero, Raffles.

Though mired by the heavy-handed Victorian anti-semitism embodied in the characterization (one may even say caricature) of Levy, the book, if considered in the light of the prevalent contemporary culture, is an enjoyable ride through the flipside of Holmesian England. If you can stomach the equivalent treatment of Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice", then you are prepared for the rife prejudice of Hornung's portrayal of Dan Levy.

This addition to the Raffles series also features a far more profound romantic side to Raffles than seen earlier in his dalliance with the young German lady in "The Gift of the Emperor."

All in all, a suspenseful volume worthy of the legend of Raffles.

H. R. F. Keating wrote (in Henderson's Crime & Mystery Writers) "I put E. W. Hornung's stories about A. J. Raffles, gentleman cracksman, squarely besides the Holmes tales of Conan Doyle (Hornung's brother-in-law). Both sets of stories seem to me to have that feeling of absolute rightness, perhaps the surest way of distinguishing that hard to define thing, 'the classic.'"