Sexton Blake Bibliography: 1951
Publishing: The SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY raises its price from 7d to 8d starting from issue 243.
KNOCKOUT · Issue 620 · 13/01/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Roland Davies)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Kalgat shells destroy the bridge as Sexton Blake and Tinker drive across it in the tank. The vehicle plunges into the river below and the two detectives swim for their lives, just making it to the river bank as another shell lands on the ruined bridge. Falling into the hands of Sanchu troops, they are taken under guard to the division headquarters in a nearby village. There, they are presented to General Wong, who is the traitor Blake has been commissioned to find. He accuses them of being spies and sentences them to the firing squad.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 633 · 14/04/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Robert MacGillivray)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Dr. Charles Gordon reveals that the Golden Scorpion had contained a map but this had been removed before the artifact was stolen. Gordon is now heading back to Peru in search of the lost Inca silver mine indicated on the map. He asks Sexton Blake to accompany him. The detective agrees. En route, Gordon's cabin is ransacked and his luggage is searched... and as they head into the interior of Peru, they feel that they are being watched. One night, an intruder sabotages one of the expedition's jeeps. The next day, its brakes fail and only Blake's quick thinking prevents a fatal accident.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 636 · 05/05/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Robert MacGillivray)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Sexton Blake manages to shoot one of the bird men down but two others swoop on Peggy and abduct her. She is taken to an ancient citadel where she is presented to the tribe's leader, Teccla. At his right side stands Bokata and at his left... Tom, her brother! He reveals that he is friends with the hidden people and that Gordon once tried to kill him. Peggy suspects that he is out of his mind. Meanwhile, Sexton Blake dons the captured bird wings in an attempt to fly to the citadel.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 637 · 12/05/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Robert MacGillivray)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Flying over the citadel, Blake swoops onto a guard and overpowers him. He then opens the fortress's doors and signals to Tinker and Gordon. They join him and enter the citadel but then hear footsteps approaching. Upon encountering a boat, they hide aboard it. A party of priests appear and climb aboard. Among them is Peggy and Tom Worth.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 638 · 19/05/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Robert MacGillivray)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Sexton Blake, Tinker and Dr Gordon watch from their hiding place as Peggy and Tom climb aboard. The boat sets off and they eavesdrop as Tom tells Peggy that Gordon had left him for dead on their previous expedition. At this, Gordon leaps up brandishing a pistol and a fight breaks out. The boat swings off course and smashes into a rock.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 641 · 09/06/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Robert MacGillivray)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Dr. Gordon and the High Priest sentence Sexton Blake, Tinker and Tom Worth to death. The prisoners are led to the edge of a smoking pit but here they turn on their captors and manage to make a getaway. Tinker shoots at the temple guards and his shots set off an avalanche. Amid the chaos, Blake & Co escape into the open. In front of them, the temple begins to collapse.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 645 · 07/07/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Roland Davies)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: This serial was reprinted in KNOCKOUT from 2nd December 1961 to 10th February 1962 under the title PETE MADDEN AND THE SEA WOLVES with Sexton Blake's name changed to Pete Madden and Tinker's changed to Steve.
Unrated
KNOCKOUT · Issue 650 · 11/08/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Roland Davies)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Tinker shoots the gun out of Zero's hands and Sexton Blake leaps onto the crook and knocks him unconscious. While his assistant keeps the henchmen at bay, the detective leads the way along the tunnel carrying Zero over his shoulder. They come to an underground railway and ride it towards the criminals' island base. A radio message is sent ahead, warning of their imminent arrival.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 651 · 18/08/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Roland Davies)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: At the secret island base, the message is received from the sea fort which warns that Blake & Co are approaching in the electric train. An ambush is set up but Tinker keeps a gun trained on Zero and Blake warns the enemy that if they fire their leader will be killed. The impasse is ended when the captured crew of the Sea Spray attack the villains. During the fight, Zero makes a break for freedom.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 652 · 25/08/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Roland Davies)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Zero escapes from the fighting to fetch reinforcements. Blake and his allies board submarines to escape from the base. However, Zero reappears with a rocket gun and scores a direct hit against Blake's sub.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 654 · 08/09/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Roland Davies)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Down in the crippled submarine, Blake & Co don breathing apparatus and shoot themselves out of the torpedo tubes towards the surface. Lorna goes first, followed by Captain Grant and then Tinker. With no-one to operate the mechanism, Sexton Blake is left trapped. Zero's divers cut a hole in the vessel's hull and it begins to flood. As the pressure equalises, the detective opens the hatch and swims to the surface. From the island, shots are fired at the escapees.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 657 · 29/09/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Roland Davies)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Professor Lawson and his daughter, Peggy, are walking in their garden when a helicopter descends and Lawson is kidnapped. He manages to throw a packet containing secret plans to Peggy, who flees with the villainous Korlov in pursuit. Meanwhile, Sexton Blake and Tinker approach, having heard that Korlov is in the country. They are concerned that he will attempt to get hold of the plans to the Atom Cloud ... and they are right! Their arrival comes just in time — Peggy leaps into their car and they race away with the helicopter hot on their tail.
Trivia: This serial was reprinted in KNOCKOUT from 17th February 1962 to 21st April 1962 under the title PETE MADDEN VERSUS THE MASTER SPY with Sexton Blake's name changed to Pete Madden and Tinker's changed to Steve.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 658 · 06/10/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Roland Davies)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Tinker shoots at the helicopter and hits the pilot. The machine slips out of control and crashes into a tree. The crooks escape the wreckage and steal a car which Blake and Tinker pursue on a motorcycle. They follow it to a farm where the crooks have hidden a powerful plane.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 660 · 20/10/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Roland Davies)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: In the tail of Korlov's plane, Tinker revives Sexton Blake. As the aircraft approaches the mountains of Boravia, one of Korlov's men enters the rear compartment. Tinker knocks him unconscious while Blake rushes forward to the cockpit and overpowers Korlov. The detective struggles to control the plane but is unable to prevent a wing-tip smashing against a mountainside.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 661 · 27/10/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Roland Davies)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Sexton Blake is unable to gain control of the crooks' plane and it crash lands on a mountainside in Boravia. The detective is thrown clear. He watches as Korlov and Jansen stagger out of the plane with the captive professor and set off for their nearby headquarters. While Blake is busy rescuing Tinker from the burning wreckage, the villains hijack a car belonging to Colonel Raymond of the Boravian army, leaving him stranded at the roadside. Blake and Tinker encounter him and explain that Korlov must be captured at all costs.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 662 · 03/11/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Roland Davies)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Sexton Blake and Tinker appropriate an army motorcycle and speed away after Korlov. Their opponent reaches a pinnacle of rock known as The Crest and disappears inside through a secret entrance. Blake phones for assistance and soon The Crest is surrounded by artillary. Blake approaches the hideout under the protection of a white flag but Korlov refuses to surrender. The guns begin to fire at the rocky outcrop.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 663 · 10/11/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Roland Davies)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: From The Crest, rockets are fired back at the artillery. The army, realising that it cannot stand up to the barrage, retreats. Blake and Tinker creep to the rear of the rocky pinnacle and intercept a tanker as it approaches the enemy stronghold.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 669 · 22/12/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Graham Coton)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Sexton Blake throws a grenade into the pumps to stop himself and Tinker being sucked in. Amid a hail of bullets, they enter their flooded submarine and fire a torpedo into the side of the dry dock. Using the explosion as cover, they leave the submarine and race into a tunnel which leads to a vast storehouse. Blake and his assistant escape on a rail car which leads through tunnels and into a canyon. There they find a gigantic gun which is preparing to fire an atomic shell at London.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
KNOCKOUT · Issue 670 · 29/12/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 3d
Illustrator: Anon. (Graham Coton)
Other content: Various strips and text stories.
Notes: Blake and Tinker race to the giant gun and climb onto its empty platform. With the secret police searching for them, they take refuge in the gun's massive chamber. When Doctor Power is informed that they are nowhere to be found, he decides to proceed with a test firing of an atom shell. The shell is loaded into the gun, blocking Blake and Tinker's escape. They desperately run up the barrel to the muzzle. From there, they leap into the doctor's car and force him at gunpoint to drive through the guards and to the research station.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
THE SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY · 3rd series · Issue 233 · Feb. 1951 · Amalgamated Press · 7d
Illustrator: Eric Parker
Other content: It Happened in 1850 (article)
Notes: An estate agent discovers the body of a murdered man in an untenanted apartment and calls in Sexton Blake to investigate. However, rather than focusing on the detective as he follows up the clues, this story spends more time in the company of the syndicate of small-time crooks responsible for the crime. It doesn't suffer for that, though, as there's some absorbing character interaction on offer. The syndicate has embezzled money by having one of their members impersonate the beneficiary of a huge inheritance (having killed the man first). Unfortunately, as soon as the money is in their grasp, the group begins to tear itself apart with betrayals. One of them, a Frenchman called Lamaitre, makes off with the money. Before he gets away, the French police arrest him for a minor crime he committed some time ago. Just prior to being collared, he manages to hide a suitcase containing the stolen currency. Some months later, when Lamaitre is finally released from prison, another member of the gang — Fletcher — starts tracking him, with vengeance in his heart and the case of money on his mind. One by one, as the pursuit continues, Fletcher kills the other members of the syndicate. This man is an absolute psychopath — one of the most realistically brutal and callous killers ever to appear in a Sexton Blake story. This is contrasted to one of the other members of the gang — Maxie — whose toughness is strictly Hollywood inspired. Gloria, his cousin, who gets caught up in all the violence, is also much influenced by the silver screen — and that's what gives this novel its depth. By juxtaposing true-to-life sadism with the shallow pseudo-toughness of cinema-style gangsterism, a dreadful tension is achieved. Fletcher becomes all the more terrifying because he appears to have stepped out of our sometimes squalid reality into the romanticised world of the Sexton Blake Library. Blake and Tinker occupy very few pages. Instead, the plot follows Gloria, who survives the most extreme situations simply because she is too shallow and unimaginative to do otherwise. She is naive because every aspect of her character is informed by the movies. She seems to regard Fletcher as a man who's acting until, gradually, the inescapable truth dawns; he's not following a script, good guys don't always win, and this particular bad guy is prepared to go to any hideous length to get what he wants. When that shocking truth finally dawns on her, it comes as a body-blow to the reader as well — not because it's telling us anything we don't already know, but because we simply don't expect to find such intense contrasts in a book like this. For the first half of the story, it's difficult to know where the plot is going but then something entirely unexpected happens; there's a subtle gear shift as Fletcher's true nature emerges. The key characters meet in an abandoned village on the French coast and, all of a sudden, we're in 'psycho' territory and Gloria is in serious — really serious — trouble.
Rating: ★★★★★ The denouement is a bit low-key compared to the hysteria that leads up to it but, nevertheless, when the story finishes it leaves the reader feeling as if something rather significant, yet slightly indefinable, has happened. The mix of romanticism and realism has the same impact as grinding gears, it makes you feel uneasy, leaves you wincing. The first half is a struggle but once the halfway point is reached, this seemingly innocuous entry in the Library is surprisingly powerful.
THE SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY · 3rd series · Issue 244 · Jul. 1951 · Amalgamated Press · 8d
Illustrator: Eric Parker
Other content: The Victims of the Villa (article)
Notes: This story has been the source of some controversy among Blake scholars. Records indicate that Lewis Jackson (real name Jack Lewis) was paid for the tale. However, the style is not his and the real author is believed to be Ladbroke Black. The theory is that the story is actually an old one, by Black, which Amalgamated Press reprinted in a slightly altered form with Lewis Jackson as the credited author because he was much more popular with the readers. I have not yet been able to identify the original story.
Unrated
THE SUN COMIC · Issue 138 · 29/9/1951 · Amalgamated Press · 2d
Illustrator: Eric Parker
Other content: Various strips and text stories
Notes: Sexton Blake and Tinker arrive at the scene of a smash-and-grab robbery. A jeweller's shop window has been broken by a horseshoe thrown through it and the thief has escaped with the loot. The horseshoe reminds Blake of a superstitious crook known as Lucky Martin, who lives nearby. When the detective, with Detective Superintendent Coutts, visits Martin, they find that he has a cast iron alibi. He was at a boxing match in Earl's Court, can give details of the fight, and couldn't possibly have returned in time to commit the robbery. Blake sees something that gives him an idea. He correctly predicts when the next smash-and-grab will occur and when Martin returns home on that day, he finds Blake and Tinker waiting. He gives the same alibi but this time it's obvious that he has come home far earlier than possible from Earl's Court. Blake reveals that the crook had been watching the boxing on television before rushing out to perform the robberies. Martin is arrested.
Trivia: A simplistic tale for the juvenile market but one that's interesting for the modern reader because, when it was published, television was obviously still something of a novelty. How times have changed!
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆