Friday, November 17, 2023

Sexton Blake: The House of the Hanging Sword - Gwyn Evans


It had been a while since I read a Sexton Blake yarn. I realized that while I’d read stories from early in Blake’s history and also late entries from the so-called New Era, I’d never read anything from what’s considered the Golden Age for the character, the Twenties and Thirties. So I picked up a collection called SEXTON BLAKE WINS, which reprints six novellas and three short stories from that period. The first novella is “The House of the Hanging Sword”, from the February 10, 1934 issue of DETECTIVE WEEKLY, and is by Gwyn Evans, one of the most popular Blake authors. A series of mysterious, apparently unrelated disappearances draws Blake into a dangerous case that involves an isolated house in the English countryside, robed and cowled villains, and plenty of blood and thunder. Great fun that gallops right along.

1 comment:

Chris Schillig said...

Coincidentally, I was reading a review earlier today about Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror, one of eight movies in a new Blu-ray collection, The Criminal Acts of Tod Slaughter. The review is on the Trailers from Hell website: https://trailersfromhell.com/the-criminal-acts-of-tod-slaughter/