Review: The "Iblis" at Ludd - Talbot Mundy (William L. Gribbon)

“The ‘Iblis’ at Ludd” is the third story featuring Talbot Mundy’s most famous character, Major James Schuyler Grim, better known as Jimgrim, an American adventurer who’s a member of the British intelligence service in the perilous days following the First World War. The first two stories were combined in the fix-up novel JIMGRIM AND ALLAH’S PEACE, which I reviewed earlier this year. The short novel “The ‘Iblis’ at Ludd”, from the January 10, 1922 issue of the pulp ADVENTURE, is a direct sequel to those two yarns.

Jimgrim is still in Palestine, which is occupied by the British army and torn between Zionist and Arab factions. His assignment is to find out who stole two tons of TNT that figured in the plot of the previous story, as well as to discover the identity of the ringleader of a gang of thieves that has been stealing munitions from the British army. This ringleader is rumored to be the Iblis, which means “devil”, a dervish afflicted with leprosy. But there may be co-conspirators, and the scheme may reach all the way into the ranks of the British army. Jimgrim is assisted in his investigation by the stalwart Sikh, Narayan Singh, and Suliman, an incorrigible young beggar.

While I liked it overall, my main complaint about JIMGRIM AND ALLAH’S PEACE was that it was really talky and lacking in action. That’s kind of true in this story, as well, although I think that overall Mundy (whose real name was William Lancaster Gribbon) sets a faster pace and the prose is a little leaner. Things move along quickly enough to keep me interested, and while there’s still not much action, several scenes are genuinely suspenseful and Mundy does a great job with the setting.

The main virtue of “The ‘Iblis’ at Ludd” is the Iblis his ownself, who’s a great villain reminiscent of the Thuggee cult leader in GUNGA DIN as played by Eduardo Ciannelli. I could certainly see Ciannelli in this role, too. The biggest weakness in the story is the way it’s structured. There are several storylines going on, and Mundy moves back and forth between them in a disjointed fashion that makes it a little difficult to keep up with what’s going on. It’s not confusing enough to ruin the story, but I think it would have been more effective if a few things had been shifted around a little.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I read some of the later Jimgrim novels when they were reprinted in the Sixties, and the character in these early tales isn’t as dominant and competent as he would be later on. But it’s interesting watching him develop, and as a writer, Mundy’s prose ranges from good to excellent, so I intend to continue with the series. “The ‘Iblis’ at Ludd” is available on Amazon in several different e-book and print editions. I suspect that when it was first published more than a hundred years ago, Mundy didn’t give much if any thought to the possibility people would still be reading and reviewing it a century later.

Jimgrim and Allah's Peace - Talbot Mundy (William Lancaster Gribbon)

Back in the Sixties when Avon published paperback editions of several of Talbot Mundy’s Jimgrim novels, they made the books seem like a cross between Robert E. Howard (“Talbot Mundy’s exotic world of fantastic adventure” enthused the cover copy) and Doc Savage (“Jimgrim and his amazing crew”). So naturally, I grabbed them off the paperback racks and read them. They weren’t exactly what those covers promised, being leisurely paced stories mostly about political and religious strife in the Middle and Far East. But the characters were interesting, especially James Schuyler Grim, an American working for British Intelligence, and the occasional action scenes were well-done. I enjoyed them enough that I’ve wanted to read the entire Jimgrim series sometime, and at my age, if I’m ever going to, I’d better get started.

So I read the first novel in the series, JIMGRIM AND ALLAH’S PEACE, which is actually a fix-up of two connected novellas, “The Adventure at El-Kerak”, originally published in the November 10, 1921 issue of the pulp ADVENTURE and “Under the Dome of the Rock” from the December 10, 1921 issue of ADVENTURE. The narrator is an unnamed American journalist in Jerusalem, which is under the control of the British at the moment, with the army enforcing an uneasy peace between Jews and Arabs. The ongoing conflict between Zionists and Palestinians is uncannily similar to the unfortunate things going on in the Middle East today. Even a little creepy, to be honest, and commenting on the similarity of current events to stories from a 102-year-old pulp is as far as I intend to delve into politics on this blog.

The narrator’s friendship with Jimgrim draws him into involvement with two separate but related plots by radical groups to destabilize things even more and start a war that will engulf the whole Middle East in blood and flame. So the stakes are really high as Jimgrim and his allies seek to foil these plots before they can come to fruition.

Unfortunately, except for a couple of excellent action scenes at the end of each source novella, foiling the plots consists of sitting around and talking, walking around Jerusalem and talking, and a lot of skulking. These stories are very well-written with superb settings and well-drawn characters, but they take “leisurely paced” to a whole new level. When Mundy wants to bring the blood and thunder, he’s perfectly capable of doing so, but he should have done more of it in JIMGRIM AND ALLAH’S PEACE.

That said, I enjoyed this novel enough to continue reading the series, but I sure hope the other installments have a little bit more action in them.