Monday 22 October 2012

W is for Edgar Wallace

This is my post for Crime Fiction Alphabet W.

I don't know why I never read a Edgar Wallace book before. This year I read Yellow Snake by Edgar Wallace and it was fun. If you haven't guessed from the title, this book is about Chinese- Chinese domination of the world. Yep! Racist, but given the times, I suppose Yellow Peril novels were quite common then. If you could overlook this bit you can have some great fun.

With twists and turns Yellow Snake is a fun read with some surprises, kidnapping, murders, mistaken identities and an evil chinaman with a mission to capture the world. Yellow Snake was published in 1926. I downloaded the book from Feedbooks. This work is in public domain in countries where copyright is Life+70.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This one sounds as though it has as much adventure in it as crime fiction. You make an interesting point too about keeping in mind the era when one's reading a novel. There are some novels I choose not to read because of 'isms' even knowing the era in which they were written. Still, you're right that there are plenty that are good reads despite the 'isms.'

Peggy Ann said...

I just read an Edgar Wallace book too for the first time! The Clue of the Twisted Candle. Lots of his books are free now. Happy Reading!

guiltlessreader said...

Hey there! You won a copy of Keeping Score on the giveaway on my blog :) Can you please email me your mailing address at readerrabbit22 at gmail.com

TracyK said...

Very interesting. I am not familiar with Edgar Wallace, but I certainly will look into him.

Anonymous said...

Hi Valli - I've read a fair amount og Wallace over the years though not this particular one. He produced at such a furious pace that people used to joke about whether the weekly Wallace novel had come out yet. he produced over 200 novels and plays in less than 30 years. He was mainly an ideas man and a lot of his boks are still quite ingenious - THE FOUR JUST MEN is probably still hsi most fanous though THE CRIMSON CIRCLE and THE SQUEAKER are better books IMHO.