The Crimson Circle

The Crimson Circle is a shadow organization that recruits desperate men in secret, then marks its wealthy victims with a red circle before striking. When magnate James Beardmore receives their ominous warning and is gunned down in the woods near his estate, the hunt begins. Scotland Yard dispatches the stolid Inspector Parr, but he soon finds himself working alongside the unorthodox Derrick Yale, an intuitive sleuth whose methods are as unsettling as they are effective. Together they must unravel a web of clues: spent cartridges, pointed boot prints, cigar ash. But the Circle has eyes everywhere. Thalia Drummond, a cool and enigmatic secretary whose loyalties remain deliciously unclear, becomes the pivotal figure, arrested for pawning her employer's idol, then installed as a spy within a bank, ordered to monitor the movements of the suspicious Felix Marl. A hired killer confesses, only to be silenced by cyanide, the Crimson Circle's signature left behind. Wallace builds relentless tension as the net closes on a mastermind who manipulates victims and accomplices from the shadows. This is vintage 1920s crime fiction: shadowy syndicates, twisty betrayal, and a cat-and-mouse hunt that doesn't release you until the final, devastating truth.