Sexton Blake Bibliography: 1958

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Notes: Inspector Coutts informs Sexton Blake that a diamond merchant has been robbed and the only clue is a single thumb-print. It's not a print that's on record at Scotland Yard but Blake has the feeling that he's seen it before. Later that morning, the detective has an inspiration and visits the house of a collector named Pennypacker. Here he examines a collection of cigarette cards and picks out one in particular from a series on the subject of crime detection which had been published twenty years ago. Blake and Tinker then travel to a cigarette manufacturer in Bristol and ask the name of the artist who designed the card. Blake calls Inspector Coutts and tells him that this is the man responsible for the crime. After the crook is captured, Blake explains his deduction.

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Notes: Stanley Maxton has recently inherited a house from his uncle but fears that it is haunted. When he sees a transparent figure on the stairs, he calls Sexton Blake for help. Tinker drives his guv'nor to the country house, overheating the engine in his eagerness to get there. Stanley's cousin George, a plumber, is also present when the detectives arrive. Stanley tells his story, revealing that the hauntings never occur when his cousin is present. He is interrupted when the sound of footsteps is heard on the stairs. George faints and a terrified Stanley vows to give up his inheritance. However, when Tinker reveals that there is a tap in the garage, which he found when attending to the overheated car, Blake tells him to fetch water from it. Tinker does so and while he's away the ghostly footsteps are heard. Blake realises the trick that has been played and exposes George as the man behind the hauntings.

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

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Notes: A police constable named Dale becomes a hero after capturing an armed gunman, who was subsequently sent to prison. Gang boss Duke Denver plots revenge and, with a henchman, waits for Dale on the Embankment after first paying a pavement artist to leave the area. Dale arrives and is attacked — he is knocked out and thrown into the Thames. A little way down the river, Sexton Blake and Tinker are crossing a bridge and see the constable in the water. Tinker dives in and rescues him. After Dale is carted away in an ambulance, Blake and Tinker investigate the area where the assault occurred and find the pavement artist at his new pitch. He claims not to have seen anything, saying he's been there all evening but, as Blake later explains to Detective Coutts, his pictures reveal that he has moved location. The detective gets the truth out of him and the artist produces sketches of the attackers, who are later arrested.

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

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Notes: A revised version of this story appeared as SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY 4th series issue 513 THE MAN WHO KILLED ME (1962).

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Notes: Set in 1941, this is a gripping and painfully tense war story. A convoy of ships is delivering supplies to the Russian port of Murmansk when it comes under fire from an unseen enemy. It seems that missiles are being fired from surface vessels but no enemy craft are showing up on the radar. The battleships leave the merchantmen and plough through the rough and bitterly cold seas towards the source of the attack. Just as something touches the edges of their radar screens, they receive a distress call from the convoy they left behind; U-boats have attacked and one by one the merchant ships are being sunk. The author doesn't pull his punches here, conjuring up some dreadful images of men 'frying in salt and oil' as burning ships are swallowed by icy waters. It's not the first time such an attack has occurred and the Admiralty is getting desperate. But after initial investigations they realise that the Caledonia has been a part of every convoy attacked... and has survived every attack unscathed. There can be only one explanation: someone is signalling the convoys' position to the Germans and that traitor has to be aboard the Caledonia. Sexton Blake is sent to join the crew. Masquerading as a navy surgeon, he finds the tension on the ship wound up to an unbearable level. As they join yet another convoy, the crewmen are cracking up. Fights erupt; jealousies, suspicions and petty hatreds are rampant. The voyage is not long underway when the first disaster strikes. A German survey plane is heard circling above the thick blanket of cloud. The crew successfully shoot it down but the pilot crashes it into the Caledonia's bridge. Blake barely escapes with his life. The convoy sails on and each night it is attacked by U-boats. The men's eyes are glazed with horror as they repeatedly witness the death of friends and colleagues. One day, an iceberg floats by. Inside, there are men, dead and frozen; floating on and on. Eventually, the traitor's methods are exposed and a trap is set for the U-boats. There's a terrific battle scene in the final chapters: the sea is sliced through with deadly torpedoes; depth charges rock the deep; screeching metal is torn from ships and subs; smoke and burning oil turn the ocean into hell. It's stunning. When the traitor is finally identified, it comes as a complete surprise.

Trivia: This was extensively rewritten and published as a Richard Quintain adventure, STRIKE NORTH by W. Howard Baker (Mayflower Books, 1965).

Rating: ★★★★★ This story is short and the author's style is brisk — even sparse — yet he packs the tale with scenes of absolutely terror. The focus is very much on the crew and their struggle with fear and the elements. Blake himself seems rather secondary and his character is extremely sketchy. He operates alone, without Tinker, and so we don't witness him bouncing ideas and theories off his sidekick. His deductions are unremarkable and can be attributed to sheer luck rather than brainpower. But the tense plot compensates in this case. This is the best of the New Order novels.

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Notes: When contestants in the Miss Cosmos beauty competition start to go missing, Blake is asked to investigate. Tinker soon discovers that Doctor Huxton Rymer is involved as a representative of the Syndicate, which is using the contest as a means to smuggle stolen papers from country to country. The detective surmises that a mix up of bags at the airport has resulted in the papers being lost, but the Syndicate believes that one of the girls may have taken them on purpose. Blake races to discover where the captives are being held, then he rushes to their rescue. Rymer proves that he’s not all bad when he steps in to prevent their murder. He ends up in police custody awaiting trial.

Trivia: Rymer is repeatedly described as "empty eyed." This is his last ever appearance.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ A tale of very little substance or entertainment value that criminally under-employs Huxton Rymer.

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Notes: This was adapted for the movie MIX ME A PERSON starring Adam Faith (1962). The character of Blake was replaced by a female psychiatrist played by Anne Baxter.

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Trivia: Jack Trevor Story wrote some of this novel; the finished product was 'adapted' from his work by W. Howard Baker. The inside front cover has a portrait of Sexton Blake by Marcus Stone and gives a description of the detective's physique and hobbies.

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Trivia: The inside front cover has a portrait of Edward Carter (Tinker) by Marc Stone and gives a description of his physique (5' 10", broad-shouldered and strong) and interests.

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Trivia: The inside front cover has a portrait of Paula Dane by Marc Stone and gives a description of her physique (5' 7", slim, well-moulded figure) and interests.

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Notes: Marisa Talbot tells her lover, the famous but elderly actor Karl Steiner, that the guests have arrived for his fancy dress party. Motionless, he addresses her through the medium of a ventriloquist dummy, "Little Heinrich," yelling at her to get out. She departs and five minutes later Karl is shot dead. Sexton Blake and Splash Kirby are among the guests gathered in the garden. They join Inspector Grummett when he arrives on the scene. Marisa becomes the policeman's primary suspect and, certainly, the circumstantial evidence is against her. Some hours later, Blake catches his friend Sir Harry Leveridge opening a concealed safe at the crime scene. The man confesses that he was attempting to retrieve papers concerning his precarious financial position but they are not in the safe. He owed Steiner money, and this, Blake realises, could be a motive for murder, though his friend passionately denies responsibility. The next day, Blake summons Kirby to the apartment occupied by Marisa's husband, Weston Talbot. The detective had set Tinker and Paula Dane to watch the woman, and they've reported that she is now on her way. Grummett is shadowing her, and when Marisa enters her husband's residence, the watchers gather outside the door. They hear Weston admit his guilt. Marisa pulls a gun but Karl Steiner's son, Gregor, suddenly appears, snatches the weapon from her, and fires it at Weston. He misses. Blake & Co. barge in and disarm him. The coroner reports that Karl Steiner was already dead when Weston shot him. Blake learns from Gregor that the actor had been gradually losing his mind and was fixated on a film he'd once starred in as a ventriloquist who became subservient to his dummy. In recent months, he'd been so possessed by the role that his personality had split, endowing Little Heinrich — the prop from the original film — with a life of its own. Gregor also reveals that his father had left everything to Marisa in his will. Blake returns to his Berkeley Square office and finds Lady Leveridge there. She gives information that suggests her husband was being blackmailed by Steiner. With Kirby, Paula, Grummett and Moody in attendance, Blake gathers the suspects in the room where the victim died: Gregor; Sir Harry and his wife; Marisa and Weston Talbot; and Steiner's butler and footman. He exposes Steiner as a cheat, poseur and villain. He reveals the truth of Marisa's relationship with the dead man. Finally, he identifies the killer and the motive. The accused denies it but then Little Heinrich speaks up from where it is propped in a corner: "But I saw you do it!" The trick is Tinker's — he is hiding under the table — and it works. The killer cracks and is arrested.

Trivia: Blake attends the fancy-dress party attired as Sherlock Holmes.

The inside front cover has a portrait of Arthur 'Splash' Kirby by Marc Stone and gives a description of his physique and interests ("many and varied").

Rating: ★★★★☆

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Trivia: The inside back cover has a portrait of Marion Lang by Marcus Stone and gives a description of her physique and interests ("music, films and modern ballet").

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Notes: This story introduces Louise Pringle.

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Trivia: The inside front cover has a portrait of Louise Pringle by Marc Stone and gives a description of her physique (5' 6", slim, aged about 43) and interests (reading, sculpture, painting).

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Notes: Blake, Tinker and Paula Dane travel by train to Scotland to investigate the death by strangulation of Major Robert Munro. They have a compartment to themselves but for one man. En route, Paula falls into a trance and tries to jump from the carriage. In Edinburgh, she then tries to throw herself from the castle parapet. The man from the train appears and encourages her suicide attempt. Tinker saves Paula then tackles the man and causes him to fall to his death. Blake theorises that Paula was hypnotised on the train by this individual, who is later identified as Colin Mackenzie of Glasgow. That city is also where Munro was killed, so Blake & Co. now go there and meet with Superintendent Ross of the local constabulary. After hearing about all that has so far occurred, the policeman raises the subject of the "Brahan Seer" — Kenneth Mackenzie — supposedly the reincarnation of a seventeenth century prophet. Colin was the seer's brother. There is also another sibling, this one named Clive. He is head of a sect that holds weekly séances. Blake attends one of the gatherings where veiled references to the Munro murder are made, along with subtle threats to his own wellbeing. Ross's investigations uncover the fact that Clive Mackenzie had a son who died while with the Army in Korea. It connects him to Munro, who also served in that country, and who had accused the youth of malingering when he'd tried to get a medical discharge. The case develops further when Munro's fiancée, Sheila, disappears and her flatmate is strangled apparently by the same person who killed the major. Blake and Paula follow Clive Mackenzie into the mist-enshrouded highlands. There, Paula is overcome by a vision of eyes in the murk and, moments later, Clive purposely slams his car into their vehicle. He is killed by the collision. Blake carries Paula to a nearby house, unaware that it is inhabited by Jeannie, the Brahan Seer's insane wife, and Wullie Oig, their grotesquely deformed son, who is the killer they've been hunting for. Wullie and Blake fight and the detective is almost overpowered. He manages to render the murderer unconscious, though, then sends Paula to fetch the police. It is by now nearing midnight on Midsummer Eve. Sheila has been taken to a glen in the hills where an occult ritual commences led by the Brahan Seer. Blake gate-crashes the party and prevents the girl from being sacrificed. Wullie, having followed Blake, is ordered to kill him. However, he has already been beaten by the detective once, so refuses to obey. He argues with his father and is stabbed to death by him. Jeannie, driven mad by the death of her son, thrusts a flaming torch at the Brahan Seer and he burns to death. Ross arrives with a squad of policemen to clear up the mess.

Trivia: Tinker's age is given as twenty-six and Paula's as twenty-eight.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Notes: Dodo Barnes has vanished from the village of Hand and her friend Angela thinks she's been murdered. Dodo had always been a controversial and ill-liked figure in the artistic community — ill-liked by the women, that is. With the men it was another story; Dodo was famous for her affairs ... even after the lower half of her face was badly scarred in a car accident. Angela calls in Sexton Blake who discovers that the girl had disappeared on the day the bandages were due to be removed after a number of skin-graft treatments. Tinker and Paula Dane follow him to the village and are, in turn, followed from Baker Street by Felix Castellani, a sculptor who is obsessed with Dodo. When Blake catches an authoress, Naomi Price, in the missing girl's cottage destroying all the threatening letters various villagers had sent to her, he learns that Rex Standish, an artist, is in love with Angela but Dodo was in love with him... just two more affairs in an increasingly tangled web! And the case gets even more complicated when it becomes apparent that Dodo seemed to be going out of her way to make people hate her. Eventually, Blake forms a theory based on the incredibly confusing mass of evidence. He gathers the prime suspects together in traditional style and reveals the truth — a tale of murder, exploding marrows and a split personality ...

Trivia: At the end of this story Sexton Blake purchases a country cottage.

Rating: ★★★★☆

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Trivia: This issue introduces the Mail Bag feature. The inside back cover has a portrait of Blake and many of his friends and associates gathered at a Christmas party. They include Blake, Tinker, Paula Dane, Marion Lang, Louise Pringle, Arthur Kirby and Eustace Craille plus authors Peter Saxon and W. Howard Baker (even though the former was a pen-name of the latter!), Jack Trevor Story and Arthur Maclean.

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Trivia: This issue's back cover also holds the Christmas portrait as described in the previous issue (above).

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