Sexton Blake Bibliography: 2021

Notes: An overview of the phenomenon that is Sexton Blake, from his inception in 1893 through to his dwindling fame in the late 1970s. Many covers are beautifully reproduced in full colour.

Notes: Isobel Ensor, a secretary at Southern Aircraft Company, is sentenced to ten years for selling secret plans to the enemy. The evidence against her is conclusive: she was the only person with access to the plan; it had been photographed with a camera watch that had been a gift from her German friend Anna Muller; the photographs were smuggled out of England by a man named Larry Rue, who she'd been seen dining with; and £5,000 had been deposited in her bank account for "photograph safely to hand." Her only defence is that, on the night in question, she was not with Larry Rue, but with a man named Walter Paine. He, however, cannot support her alibi, as he is missing believed killed in France. Her fiancé, John Maynard, vows to enter occupied France to find the man. He joins the Airforce under an assumed name and, six months later, is on the brink of his first mission. He intends to crash land his Spitfire in France so that he might begin his search. However, the evening before the mission, a woman Maynard into a house where men attempt to kill him. After shooting one of them dead, Allen returns to his airbase. The next morning, Superintendent Venner arrives to investigate. He exposes Maynard's true identity and the man is put under military arrest. Isobel Ensor's lawyer asks Sexton Blake to investigate. The detective quickly discovers that the man Maynard killed was friends with Rue. He then visits the aircraft company and, on the way back from it, he is followed by a car that, in turn, is followed by Detective-Inspector Belford, whom Venner has tasked with keeping an eye on Blake. Tinker traces its number plate, which he discovers belonged to a different car, a stolen one, the same that had been used by the woman that deceived Maynard. Blake, in disguise, visits the place where Ensor supposedly dined with Larry Rue. He catches sight of Anna Muller and, while attempting to follow her, is captured and imprisoned in a cellar by the Baron, a man who appears to lead the espionage gang and who thinks that Blake knows the whereabouts of Paine. Beltom Brass of the Secret Service comes to the rescue and reveals that Mademoiselle Yvonne de Braselieu of the French Secret Service is hunting for Walter Paine. The two men manage to get to a telephone and summon the police. The Baron and his gang flee leaving behind another prisoner, Mr Ogilvie, the manager of Southern Aircraft, who had been kidnapped and interrogated about his company's new fighter plane. Blake and Brass get permission to search for Paine and parachute into occupied France. They make their way to Rouen, where they rendezvous with Mlle. Yvonne. They learn from her that Paine, who lost both his legs during a bombing, was last seen with his nurse, Sister Agnes, and both are somewhere in the town. It takes them six days to trace this woman, and when they do, she leads them to Paine. He is dying but, in his last moments, is able to provide a signed affidavit that proves Isobel Ensor's innocence. Blake returns to England and exposes the true power behind the spy network.

Trivia: Beltom Brass and Mademoiselle Yvonne de Braselieu appear to be Anthony Parson's "modernised" versions of Granite Grant and Mademoiselle Julie. One can't help but wish he'd stuck with the original characters.

Superintendent Venner has little more than a walk-on role in this story.

Trivia: This story was originally published in THE SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY Third series, issue 8 (1941).

Rating: ★★★★★

Notes: If there's one thing you can be sure of from the long and wonderful Sexton Blake Library, it's variety. This edition, from the New Order era, takes us into the realms of science fiction with a tale of flying saucers, thought-scrambling ray guns and malformed aliens. In the tradition of detective stories, though, all is not as it seems! Blake is contacted by Eustace Craille, the head of one of England's secret agencies and a familiar figure to fans of the New Order stories — he was Blake's chief during the Second World War. But those years have passed and the new enemy isn't from Germany or Japan or, perhaps, even from this planet. UFO sightings are on the increase and Craille is worried. Something odd is going on and he wants to know what it is. Blake, as you might expect, is initially rather sceptical when flying saucers are mentioned. However, pretty soon the inexplicable evidence mounts up and he starts to realise that Craille's suspicions might be justified. There's a very creepy scene near the start of this tale when a journalist has a close encounter and ends up with a rewired brain. At this point, there's no hint of what's really happening and it looks as if we're going to experience some Blake versus alien action. You have to wonder, will the storyline go too far? Will we find ourselves pushed out of Blake's world until we feel like we're reading something that's Blakeian in name alone? Well, fortunately that never happens. Everything that follows remains firmly rooted in comfortably familiar territory. The trail leads to Iceland where the detective and his assistant, Tinker, experience an extremely rigorous training regime; a crash course in arctic survival. There's lots of realism here and the freezing wastes are vividly described. A well-meaning but totally insane British scientist — the grossly deformed Englefield — believes that he can bring about world peace with a mind-control device and superior war machines: flying saucers. These had been in their early stages of development at the end of the war. Englefield offered his arctic refuge to the Nazi scientists responsible for the technology and, ever since, they have been holed-up in the icy wilderness where they've continued developing the machines. Blake's arrival at the base brings a Nazi rebellion to boiling point and the misguided, hideous and rather pathetic Englefield is killed. Confronted with a well-armed and power-hungry army, the situation looks desperate for the English detective. Fortunately, Tinker comes to the rescue and, in the final pages, the base disappears in an impressive display of pyrotechnics.

Trivia: This story first appeared in THE SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY Fourth series, issue 457 (1960).

Rating: ★★★★☆