I Read Books: Bull-Dog Drummond
I was hoping for a dumb, old-fashioned adventure and unfortunately that was what I got, except dumber than I really wanted and old-fashioned in stupid ways. Hugh “Bull-Dog” Drummond, bored after the end of World War I (the book is subtitled The Adventures of a Demobilized Officer Who Found Peace Dull) puts an advert in the paper.
Demobilised officer, finding peace incredibly tedious, would welcome diversion. Legitimate, if possible; but crime, if of a comparatively humorous description, no objection. Excitement essential. Would be prepared to consider permanent job if suitably impressed by applicant for his services. Reply at once Box X10.He gets numerous replies, including one from a young lady that intrigues him. Her father is being blackmailed. Drummond gets caught up in the convoluted plot, is captured and escapes, then immediately turns around and gets himself captured again, and so on for a while. Eventually he discovers that the villain is committing crimes to fund what they call a syndicalist revolution, after which he will be paid by wealthy foreign backers who will pick up the now disrupted British trade.
(Drummond claims to not know a lot about politics, but in fact it’s clear he’s pretty well informed and suggests that “Evolution is our only chance – not revolution; but you, and others like you, stand to gain more by the latter....")
Anyway it’s surprisingly dull for something that relies on dinners, parties, fights, people being knocked out and tied up etc. The best is probably the start; apart from Drummond’s hilarious home-life and the advert etc. The prologue has the villain invite all his colleagues to dinner, in a very cool scene that rather unfortunately does not really add anything to the very similar one in Guy Boothby’s A Bid For Fortune.
Read This: If you insist on knowing more about 1920s adventure fiction
Don’t Read This: If the same character getting captured more than twice in a book annoys you
Comments