Over the past few days, I’ve been discussing various aspects of British thriller fiction with a friend of mine, which made me think about the fact that I’d never read anything by Edgar Wallace, despite being aware of his work for at least 50 years. Since I have several e-book editions of his novels, I decided to remedy that and picked one at random to read: THE ANGEL OF TERROR, originally published in 1922.
Set in London and on the French Riviera, this is the story of a beautiful young
heiress, the lawyer who wants to protect her, the retired British soldier hired
to be her bodyguard, and the despicable villains who want to murder her so they
can inherit a fortune. Plus a few assorted con artists and an escaped lunatic.
This isn’t a mystery at all; the reader is fully aware the whole time of who
the villains are and is privy to all their sinister plans, which get really sinister
at times, including a plot to infect the poor girl with smallpox. Despite the grisly
nature of some of the goings-on, the writing is, for the most part, fairly
genteel and restrained. Thankfully, there are a few welcome moments of blood
and thunder.
My reaction to this one was really mixed. A lot is going on, and the book
is well-paced. There’s a nice sense of “one damned thing after another”. The dialogue
is top-notch. The villains are thoroughly evil, the hero stalwart.
But the heiress is annoyingly dense, even for 1922. Even though there’s no real
mystery, there is a big plot twist near the end, but unfortunately, it was
obvious as soon as Wallace laid the groundwork for it early on. And the ending
is, well, pretty unsatisfying, to the point that I looked at the Kindle and
said, “Wait. What?”
All that said, I actually did enjoy the book and found myself wanting to get
back to it to find out what was going to happen. There’s something to be said
for sheer storytelling ability, and Wallace seems to have had it. I have no
idea how THE ANGEL OF TERROR is regarded among his body of work, but I liked it
enough that I want to read more. I hope whichever book I try next will be a
little better, though.
Since I read an e-book version, I looked online for a cover scan. The one
above is the best I found. Most were pretty sedate or didn’t fit the book at
all.
6 comments:
Many years ago I read probably a half dozen or so Wallace works. I really enjoyed many of the German thrillers “based” on Wallace (though the basis turned out very tenuous). Bottom line, sedate is the word. Well written but not very interesting. King Kong is the exception but not sure how much of that he wrote.
I had that exact Pan edition - never read it of course - as well as many other Wallaces. I have read some, including some short stories.
Edgar Wallace was hugely influential. He shaped British (world?) thriller fiction for decades during his life and after his death in 1932. I wonder how much light fiction first published a hundred years ago is still being read today ... and encouraging an informed and successful writer of our own times not only to review it but want to read more.
A recent, May 2022 assessment of Wallace ("The Forgotten King of Mystery") and his work can be found here: https://murder-mayhem.com/edgar-wallace. I would disagree with Harry Pearson's assertion that after Wallace's death "he disappeared like a puff of tobacco smoke". In the late 1940s, the '50s, and early '60s his books were still to be found in every UK bookstore and library, a few in twenty-something printings. Today the writer of thriller/romance/Western fiction is lucky to achieve three: a first edition, a large-print reissue, and an ebook. The last will be lost in the oft-remarked tsunami of poorly or unedited "originals" on a retailer's vast, ever-expanding website; the share of income reaching the author will scarcely pay for the effort of text reformatting and acquisition of a cover. No Edgar Wallace millions and high living!
Didn't Wallace help create the first movie version of "King Kong"? I know he didn't write the original novel tie-in but he and Merian C. Cooper share screen credit.
I read KING KONG while I was in junior high and I was at the right age to be thrilled. while in college I read THE FOUR JUST MEN and was less than thrilled. Since then I've only read one ofhi sci-fi/disaster stories and some of the J. G. Reeder and Sanders of the River tales. I liked the Reeder and Sanders stories but, at my age and at this time, I fear Wallace is best left to very small doses.
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