derrierloisirs.fr » Mystery and Suspense » The Four Just Men

Download The Four Just Men ePub

by Edgar Wallace

Edgar Wallace Thrillers and Suspense English

ISBN 184232683X
ISBN13 978-1842326831
Language English
Author Edgar Wallace
Publisher House of Stratus; New edition edition (February 12, 2001)
Pages 134
Formats doc azw lrf docx
Category Mystery and Suspense
Subcategory Thrillers and Suspense
Size ePub 1189 kb
Size Fb2 1763 kb
Rating: 4.8
Votes: 721

When Foreign Secretary Sir Philip Ramon receives a threatening, greenish-grey letter signed “Four Just Men,” he remains determined to see his Aliens Extradition Bill made law. A device in the members' smoke room and a sudden magnesium flash that could easily have been nitroglycerin leave Scotland Yard baffled. Even Fleet Street cannot identify the illusive Manfred, Gonsalez, Pioccart, and Thery—four just men dedicated to punishing by death those whom conventional justice cannot touch.

The Four Just Men is a detective thriller published in 1905 by the British writer Edgar Wallace. The eponymous "Just Men" appear in several sequels

The Four Just Men is a detective thriller published in 1905 by the British writer Edgar Wallace. The eponymous "Just Men" appear in several sequels. Edgar Wallace formed the idea of The Four Just Men - four wealthy gentleman vigilantes (including a European prince) who punish wrong-doers who are beyond the reach of the Law – while returning to England in 1905.

These are stories of the Four Just Men, Edgar Wallace's famous characters known to the wider public principally as a. .The Just Men set about to rectify matters according to their own standards and retribution is dispensed on swift and deadly wings.

These are stories of the Four Just Men, Edgar Wallace's famous characters known to the wider public principally as a result of the early television series of the same name. The source material is, of course, far removed from its celluloid derivative.

BY EDGAR WALLACE Adapted by Colin Davis BBC WS Broadcast in two parts July 2 and 9, 1990. Based on the novel that made Edgar Wallace. For the public good, four mysterious men threaten the life of a UK Secretary of State unless proposed legislation is withdrawn.

The Four Just Men was one of Edgar Wallace’s most famous novels and even today the title of this dramatic tale featuring the exploits of his four unconventional vigilantes is well known; but I doubt if many modern readers are aware that there were five other books featuring these cunning and reckless heroes. Now Wordsworth have stepped into this particular breach and present you with The Complete Four Just Men – and what a thrilling rollercoaster collection it is, capturing as it does the air of intrigue, international tensions and conflicts, casual and brutal crime redolent of the early part of the twentieth century.

More books by Edgar Wallace. The Four Just Men were hunting War Criminals post WW2, but in the books they were Balkan refugees who were taking revenge for both sides of the turn of the 19/20 century struggle there

More books by Edgar Wallace. The Clue of the Twisted Candles. The Daffodil Mystery. The People of the River. The Man Who Bought London. The Four Just Men were hunting War Criminals post WW2, but in the books they were Balkan refugees who were taking revenge for both sides of the turn of the 19/20 century struggle there. Remeber Winston Churchill had been involved in the Sidney Street seige in 1905, maybe that was Edgar Wallace's starting point for the story of revenge and retribution seekers? I have speculated that maybe the story line could be revised and modernised for the latter-day struggles in that region of the world and how would it change?

Электронная книга "The Law Of The Four Just Men", Edgar Wallace

Электронная книга "The Law Of The Four Just Men", Edgar Wallace. Эту книгу можно прочитать в Google Play Книгах на компьютере, а также на устройствах Android и iOS. Выделяйте текст, добавляйте закладки и делайте заметки, скачав книгу "The Law Of The Four Just Men" для чтения в офлайн-режиме.

A youth is lying dead in Gray Square, Bloomsbury. Constable Wiseman is at the scene, as is the handsome Frank Merril, nephew of rich John Martin. Also there is May Nuttall, whose father was the best friend Martin ever had. A small, shabby man in an ill-fitting frock coat and large gold rimmed spectacles pulls a newspaper advertisement from the deceased's waistcoat pocket. At the Yard,' whispers the constable to Frank, 'we call him The Man who Knows. Mystery & Detective. You may find it for free on the web.

We are going to Southampton,’ growled Black in his ear. ‘We shall find some friends there. He grinned in the darkness. Then, leaning forward, he gave instructions in a low tone to the chauffeur. The car jerked forward and in a few minutes it had crossed Hammersmith Broadway and was speeding towards Barnes

Talk about The Four Just Men

Malann

This is an excellent quick novel that moves right along about the Four Just Men who seek to exact justice on wrongdoers in England at the turn of the century. When they threaten a politician due to a bill he has brought before the government which they believe to be wrong, a massive panic sweeps through the nation and the search is on.

From beginning to end, several surprises abound in this race against time thriller that keeps you guessing. Mr. Wallace is said to have written over 170 novels and over a thousand short stories. I also read his thriller Jack O'Judgement which was excellent as well. And for the price, this is a must for die hard crime fiction fans.

Onoxyleili

A different kind of murder mystery because we knew who was the target and who were the murderers. Outstanding! A page turner.

misery

When the British Foreign Secretary decides to push through a law which will allow the enforced return of political refugees to their countries of origin, he becomes a target of the Four Just Men – a group of vigilantes who set out to right what they perceive as wrongs that the normal systems of justice can't touch. The story is a kind of cat-and-mouse game where the reader, along with the entire British public, waits to see if the Four Just Men succeed in carrying out their threat to assassinate the Foreign Secretary.

This was a rather odd read for me, in that I hated the premise – vigilantes are not my cup of tea – and yet found the storytelling compelling enough that I found myself racing through it. It's well written and the pacing is excellent. Wallace sits on the fence himself as to the rights and wrongs of it – he shows both sides, but doesn't take too strong a stance in favour of either. I believe in later books he chose cases that weren't quite so murky, where it was clearer that the victims of the Just Men deserved their fate, and I suspect I might prefer those.

This one, however, despite having been published way back in 1905, has a surprisingly relevant plot. The purpose of the legislation is to prevent political agitators from using the safety of foreign countries to stir up revolutions back in their own nation. Having been reading a lot about the Russian Revolution recently, it made me think very much of those Russians, like Lenin, who spent their time in the safety of exile encouraging their countrymen back home to commit acts of terrorism against the state. But I also couldn't help thinking of the West's current moral struggle over the question of allowing in refugees at a time when the fear of terrorism is high, or the difficulty of expelling people even when it's known they are attempting to radicalise others.

It's a quick read – somewhere between a long novella and a short novel. There is a mystery of sorts over how the Just Men plan to carry out the assassination. Martin Edwards tells us in his book The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books that, as an advertising ploy, Wallace offered cash prizes to readers who could work out the solution. Apparently, so many did that it nearly bankrupted him. I wish I'd been around at the time, because I thought it was blindingly obvious. I suspect, though, that might be because the key is more commonplace now than it would have been back then. Forgive the vagueness, but to say more would be a major spoiler.

The rest of the plotting works much more effectively. There is a real sense of the building tension as the deadline approaches. The Foreign Secretary is not physically brave, but shows a good deal of moral courage in the end. The police are shown as competent and vigilant, good men determined to protect the Secretary even at the expense of their own lives, if necessary. The press get involved and we see their dilemma of being ordinary good people who don't want to see murder done but also journalists who do want a huge front page story! Wallace handles all these ethical questions well and believably, I thought. The Just Men themselves are more shadowy, with no real background given as to why they've set themselves up as judge and executioner or how they got together. I found them far less credible. But I was pulled along in the need to know whether the Secretary would survive.

An intriguing read that provoked more thought than I was anticipating. I don't think I'm sufficiently enthusiastic to want to read more of the adventures of the Four Just Men, but overall I found this one interesting and entertaining enough to be glad to have read it, and to recognise its claim to be a classic of the genre. And, on that basis, recommended.

Sudert

Could not get into it.

Blackbrand

As Edgar Wallace tells it in his short novel, in the early years of the last century, this fearsome foursome --- George Manfred, Leon Gonsalez, Raymond Poiccart, and a man known simply as Thery --- assassinated the leader of the Servian Regicides, shot a "poet-philosopher" whose sick thinking corrupted a generation of young people, and hanged a leader of the French Army in the Place de la Concorde.

Vigilantes? You can call them that. But they don't act like hate-filled zealots. The Four Just Man are civilized. They advise their targets they are guilty of crimes. They tell their targets to reform. They alert their targets to the date of their death. They even give their targets a final warning --- delivered in person. As the author notes, "The honesty of the Four was their most terrible characteristic." Honesty --- how thrilling.

Now the Four Just Men have a new target: Philip Ramon, the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain. He is a public servant of unquestioned integrity with a conscience in working order. And yet he is about to commit a crime. A legal crime. But a crime nonetheless: His proposed legislation --- The Alien Extradition Act of 1905 --- would send a great Spanish social reformer, currently directing his followers from a safe perch in England, back to Spain. Once there, the corrupt government would kill him.

No reasonable Brit wants this to happen. But the Four Just Men are not like those of us who read the newspapers and bitch. Because they believe Sir Philip is a good man with a single blind spot, they have sent word to him: Drop the bill, or die. Naturally, almost every policeman in London is assigned to protect Sir Philip. The question is: Are they up to the task? Can they even identify the Four Just Men?

Very quickly you will get past the moral question --- terrorists? vigilantes? heroes? --- and find yourself lost in the whodunnit. And the howtheydunnit. You may even find yourself rooting for The Four Just Men.

How does it end? Glad you asked. Edgar Wallace held a contest when he published this novel, offering 500 pounds --- not a small sum in 1905 --- for the correct answers to some esoteric questions about the ending. Several readers guessed the answers. Wallace lost money. Or did he? For Wallace hyped 'The Four Just Men' as if it were a new flavor of Coca Cola. He took out full-page newspaper ads, put posters on subways and buses, even advertised in the movies. The publicity launched his career.

And Wallace went on to become the most famous writer in the world.

He was quick --- he could write a novel in a weekend. He was good. And he was prolific: 175 books, 24 plays and countless articles. The only title known to the contemporary reader? "King Kong." Maybe you've heard of it.

'We kill for justice,' claim the Four Just Men. On that morally uncertain but dramatically delicious boast rests the second of Edgar Wallace's titles that the world should remember --- and relish.

Mejora

This is an early locked room mystery. The unusual aspect is that most of the book is taken up with the promise of a locked room murder. As with most mysteries of this date (it was published in 1905 and has been recently republished in a handsome edition by the Folio Society), the language is stilted and the plot unbelievable. The alert reader will readily see the solution. Overall, a decent evening's entertainment.

Related to The Four Just Men