“A volume without a dull page in it, and ranging over a very wide and varied field. It contains the gleanings of long studies, pursued into the ripeness of age with the ardency of youth.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p233 Ap 15 ’20 1300w
FOX, DAVID. Man who convicted himself. *$1.90 (2c) McBride
20–18253
“The Shadowers, Inc.” is a unique detective society composed of six ex-criminals who have decided to use their exceptional talents in an honest way rather than decidedly otherwise as heretofore. There is a handwriting expert, a jewel and art connoisseur, a toxicologist, “the greatest safe-cracker of the age,” and a smooth villain who has dealt in various forms of fraud, from oil stock to psychical phenomena. At the head of this band is Rex Powell, whose brain conceived the scheme. Their aim is restitution, not prosecution, and they work privately and discreetly. Their first case is one of robbery in an exclusive Riverside Drive home, but as it progresses it provides scope for the activities of each one of The Shadowers. That they are successful in apprehending the robber almost goes without saying but their greatest success lies in the fact that they actually force the man to convict himself.
+ Boston Transcript p9 S 25 ’20 160w
“‘The man who convicted himself,’ despite its novelty, strikes the reader as plausible.”
+ N Y Times p24 Ag 29 ’20 350w
“The story has the appeal of the popular melodrama and ‘dime novel’ without descending to crude and amateurish methods of telling.”