A writer accidentally joins a group of professional terrorists and frustrates their plots.
John Coulson Kernahan (1858-1943), a journalist and critic as well as a novelist, wrote a dozen or so works of fiction; this one is notable for its rapid succession of thrilling incidents and its witty style.
“A most ingeniously imagined series of adventures.” Bookman, August, 1901
“Mr. Kernahan’s detective stories are rather different from anyone else’s. This sort of literature usually attracts either by being very horrible or by being very ingenious—or by both. Mr. Kernahan is not quite either; he seldom tries to be blood-curdling, and then generally fails; while both his characters and his incidents are too frankly impossible to earn him a reputation for ingenuity. What, then, is the secret of his success? It appears to lie in his briskness and geniality, in the attitude of tolerant alacrity with which he is always ready to oblige . . . his readers.” Manchester Guardian, March 27, 1901
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