Red Aces: Being Three Cases of Mr. Reeder
1929
Edgar Wallace, the man who outsold every other author in the world during his lifetime, created in J.G. Reeder one of detective fiction's most unsettling investigators. Where other sleuths brandish brilliance like a weapon, Reeder proceeds with the quiet, unsettling patience of a man who has already solved the puzzle and is simply waiting for everyone else to catch up. This collection of three linked cases demonstrates why Wallace ruled the thriller world: money, fraud, and murder wrapped in the fog-bound streets of 1929 London. The opening case introduces the red aces, those cryptic playing cards pinned to a dead man's door, and sets loose Kenneth McKay, a bank clerk destroyed by obsessive love; Margot Lynn, the enigmatic woman at the center of his obsession; and Rufus Machfield, a polished clubman whose gambling rooms mask darker transactions. Wallace constructs his puzzles with the precision of a safecracker, each clue landing exactly where intended. The result is detective fiction that moves like a London fog, silent and suffocating, until the final revelation arrives with the force of a gunshot. For readers who prefer their mysteries wrapped in period atmosphere and served cold.
