John Hunter (6) (1891–)
Author of The Mystery of Nameless Island
For other authors named John Hunter, see the disambiguation page.
Works by John Hunter
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1891
- Gender
- male
- Short biography
- Alfred John Hunter (he shortened his name to `John Hunter` for writing purposes) had his first work published whilst still at school. He was a popular writer of short stories and serials, but also turned out a number of novels (The Three Crows, Michael Graham : Police Cadet, The Mystery of the Nameless Island). In 1935 he joined Fleetway Publishing as a staff writer, turning his hand to westerns and detective stories. He penned a number of titles in the Sexton Blake Library series during this period. Although these almost always went out under his own name, one The Man from Madrid (series 3, issue 57, Oct 1943) was credited to `P Meriton`.
Members
Reviews
A slightly disappointing effort by one of the best Blake writers of the immediate post-war period.
The annoying thing about this one is that it`s a little below par whilst having a great deal going for it. The plot is great - a motorist is shot dead on the Franco-Spanish border, an old lady in England is killed with a hammer. Blake becomes involved and soon finds the two cases are linked.
By the standards of this kind of thing there is quite an array of good characters - a husband-and-wife show more team of nightclub entertainers, a crooked solicitor, an alcoholic doctor, a ruthless businessman, a pair of over-ambitious hired killers. Blake is portrayed as a rather more reflective character than usual, and this adds interest.
The problem, I think is with the writing. The plot has more than it`s share of action, but the writing never really brings it to life, and the feeling one gets is of a tired writer. I am not using that as a metaphor for a world-weary hack, I actually mean a writer who happened to be tired ! This can be seen in one or two errors - using the word `surety` when he obviously means `certainty`, for instance. There`s also a scene where it takes two or three sentences to explain that Blake`s assistant has witnessed certain events through an open inner door - as the reader already knows he`s in an adjacent room, a few words would have done the trick.
It doesn`t help that Hunter obviously never expected the story to fit on 64 pages (post-war austerity measures meant a reduction in size of the SBL). Consequently, the typeface used is rather too small for ease of reading, and even then, the story has to end on the inside back cover.
All in all, there are plenty of worse stories about,and it doesn`t need major surgery but a Hunter on top form could have delivered it better. show less
The annoying thing about this one is that it`s a little below par whilst having a great deal going for it. The plot is great - a motorist is shot dead on the Franco-Spanish border, an old lady in England is killed with a hammer. Blake becomes involved and soon finds the two cases are linked.
By the standards of this kind of thing there is quite an array of good characters - a husband-and-wife show more team of nightclub entertainers, a crooked solicitor, an alcoholic doctor, a ruthless businessman, a pair of over-ambitious hired killers. Blake is portrayed as a rather more reflective character than usual, and this adds interest.
The problem, I think is with the writing. The plot has more than it`s share of action, but the writing never really brings it to life, and the feeling one gets is of a tired writer. I am not using that as a metaphor for a world-weary hack, I actually mean a writer who happened to be tired ! This can be seen in one or two errors - using the word `surety` when he obviously means `certainty`, for instance. There`s also a scene where it takes two or three sentences to explain that Blake`s assistant has witnessed certain events through an open inner door - as the reader already knows he`s in an adjacent room, a few words would have done the trick.
It doesn`t help that Hunter obviously never expected the story to fit on 64 pages (post-war austerity measures meant a reduction in size of the SBL). Consequently, the typeface used is rather too small for ease of reading, and even then, the story has to end on the inside back cover.
All in all, there are plenty of worse stories about,and it doesn`t need major surgery but a Hunter on top form could have delivered it better. show less
John Hunter wrote a number of titles for publishers Fleetway/Amalgamated during the immediate post-war period. His output included a number of westerns, but I suspect he is better remembered for his Sexton Blake Library titles.
This was a period when the SBL was far from thriving. Post-war economy measures meant the magazine was reduced in size to 64 pages, and the writers, many being veterans of the `Golden Age` of Blake-between-the-wars were maybe not all the hot property they had been in show more the past.
Nonetheless, this lively tale from Hunter is an accomplished and engrossing piece of work.
It actually tells two stories, one concerning an Englishman on the run for a crime he did not commit, the other a Spanish financier wishing to make himself scarce in light of crimes he quite clearly did commit.
The two arrive at a plan that should solve both men`s problems, but little do they know that a petty criminal turned blackmailer has realised the situation and plans to turn it to his advantage.
Sexton Blake and assistant Tinkr are hired to solve one case and stumble upon the other.
This could so easily have become a confusing mess, but Hunter`s telling of two tales is masterful, especially given the limited space available.
His attempts to characterise foreigners maybe a little gauche - noticeable in some of his other works as well - but are far from offensive or distasteful. His Blake may seem a little anonymous, but it hardly detracts from the story.
On reading this, you may wonder if it was not originally intended as a Blake story. It`s said a number of writers turned proposed novels of their own into Blakes on finding themselves strapped for cash - Jack Trevor Story admitted that he had done this regularly - and this may be a case in point.
Hunter is not considered the most collectable of Blake writers, meaning you can pick up his post-war Blakes very cheaply indeed. I recommend you do so. show less
This was a period when the SBL was far from thriving. Post-war economy measures meant the magazine was reduced in size to 64 pages, and the writers, many being veterans of the `Golden Age` of Blake-between-the-wars were maybe not all the hot property they had been in show more the past.
Nonetheless, this lively tale from Hunter is an accomplished and engrossing piece of work.
It actually tells two stories, one concerning an Englishman on the run for a crime he did not commit, the other a Spanish financier wishing to make himself scarce in light of crimes he quite clearly did commit.
The two arrive at a plan that should solve both men`s problems, but little do they know that a petty criminal turned blackmailer has realised the situation and plans to turn it to his advantage.
Sexton Blake and assistant Tinkr are hired to solve one case and stumble upon the other.
This could so easily have become a confusing mess, but Hunter`s telling of two tales is masterful, especially given the limited space available.
His attempts to characterise foreigners maybe a little gauche - noticeable in some of his other works as well - but are far from offensive or distasteful. His Blake may seem a little anonymous, but it hardly detracts from the story.
On reading this, you may wonder if it was not originally intended as a Blake story. It`s said a number of writers turned proposed novels of their own into Blakes on finding themselves strapped for cash - Jack Trevor Story admitted that he had done this regularly - and this may be a case in point.
Hunter is not considered the most collectable of Blake writers, meaning you can pick up his post-war Blakes very cheaply indeed. I recommend you do so. show less
John Hunter was one of those authors who wrote for just about any genre from before the First World War up to the 1950s. Among his hundreds of stories were about three dozen for the 30s Magazine THE THRILLER and nearly fifty SEXTON BLAKES from 1936 to the '50s.
THE SECRET MAN is a spy story which appeared in THE THRILLER in 1936.
A secret pagan organisation called the Brethren of the Hammer of Thor plans by assassination of Hitler, the Austrian Chancellor and perhaps Mussolini to destabilize show more Central Europe and put their leader Baron von Uhlstein as head of a united state. The master criminal Nicholas and his servant Wolf kidnap von Uhlstein with the intention, once the plot has succeeded, to usurp the leadership and conquer France and England. But the 'Silver Greyhounds', a hidden espionage group of the English government, won't allow this to happen, of course. The End is a bit disappointing, though. The master criminal manages to escape. Maybe Hunter used or planned to use Nicholas as a serial master crook in further stories.
The style is lively, a bit violent, and highly readable. Hunter is also strong on atmosphere. I loved the desciption of the Belgian coastline with its tram in drizzling rain. Hunter always gets his places right:
"The villa overlooked the Aussen Alster and it stood on that great Harvestehude lakeside where the millionaires have their dwelling places, in a setting which - considering it is in the heart of one of the world's greatest ports - is itself exquisitely beautiful, the villa was like a gem in a splendid setting". Living in Hamburg, I can confirm it was (and it is) like that.
In this Hunter story we find a likeable Jew, Solly Cohen. In a 30's thriller this is no small achievemnt, too. show less
THE SECRET MAN is a spy story which appeared in THE THRILLER in 1936.
A secret pagan organisation called the Brethren of the Hammer of Thor plans by assassination of Hitler, the Austrian Chancellor and perhaps Mussolini to destabilize show more Central Europe and put their leader Baron von Uhlstein as head of a united state. The master criminal Nicholas and his servant Wolf kidnap von Uhlstein with the intention, once the plot has succeeded, to usurp the leadership and conquer France and England. But the 'Silver Greyhounds', a hidden espionage group of the English government, won't allow this to happen, of course. The End is a bit disappointing, though. The master criminal manages to escape. Maybe Hunter used or planned to use Nicholas as a serial master crook in further stories.
The style is lively, a bit violent, and highly readable. Hunter is also strong on atmosphere. I loved the desciption of the Belgian coastline with its tram in drizzling rain. Hunter always gets his places right:
"The villa overlooked the Aussen Alster and it stood on that great Harvestehude lakeside where the millionaires have their dwelling places, in a setting which - considering it is in the heart of one of the world's greatest ports - is itself exquisitely beautiful, the villa was like a gem in a splendid setting". Living in Hamburg, I can confirm it was (and it is) like that.
In this Hunter story we find a likeable Jew, Solly Cohen. In a 30's thriller this is no small achievemnt, too. show less
Like Walter Tyrer, John Hunter was a successful novelist of the pre-war years, who spent the post-war period writing for Fleetway. I believe that, like Tyrer, he turned his hand to anything they needed - detective stories, westerns, romance.
This Sexton Blake story of Hunter`s is a little different in tone to some of his others, it is told in a very straightforward manner, with some of the language, particularly towards the beginning, being used in a quite pedestrian way. There is none of the show more interweaving of the stories of different characters that I had taken to be his trademark.
Against that, the story is enlivened by two excellent villains (who could usefully have been reprised for another story, in my opinion). While the other criminals (there are quite a few) are less memorable, they are a sufficiently vile and treacherous lot to keep the reader`s interest. There are one or two plot developments (I wouldn`t neccesarily call them twists, but certainly developments) that are particularly unexpected,and certainly keep the reader engaged.
Like a number of the Hunter/Tyrer Blake stories, this one seems vaguely gentle, even though it is as full of murder, fraud, infidelity, betrayal and violence as you could hope to encounter. I can only think that this is because the writing lacks pace when compared to the Blake stories of the Howard Baker era. I don`t regard that as a criticism, they are just good stories in a different way.
The immediate post-war period was not a great time for the Sexton Blake Library, but for me, Hunter and Tyrer performed heroically in contributing exciting, intelligently plotted, occasionally humorous and usually well-written stories to the Blake canon.
A four-star story without a doubt. show less
This Sexton Blake story of Hunter`s is a little different in tone to some of his others, it is told in a very straightforward manner, with some of the language, particularly towards the beginning, being used in a quite pedestrian way. There is none of the show more interweaving of the stories of different characters that I had taken to be his trademark.
Against that, the story is enlivened by two excellent villains (who could usefully have been reprised for another story, in my opinion). While the other criminals (there are quite a few) are less memorable, they are a sufficiently vile and treacherous lot to keep the reader`s interest. There are one or two plot developments (I wouldn`t neccesarily call them twists, but certainly developments) that are particularly unexpected,and certainly keep the reader engaged.
Like a number of the Hunter/Tyrer Blake stories, this one seems vaguely gentle, even though it is as full of murder, fraud, infidelity, betrayal and violence as you could hope to encounter. I can only think that this is because the writing lacks pace when compared to the Blake stories of the Howard Baker era. I don`t regard that as a criticism, they are just good stories in a different way.
The immediate post-war period was not a great time for the Sexton Blake Library, but for me, Hunter and Tyrer performed heroically in contributing exciting, intelligently plotted, occasionally humorous and usually well-written stories to the Blake canon.
A four-star story without a doubt. show less
Statistics
- Works
- 13
- Members
- 15
- Popularity
- #708,119
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 5
- ISBNs
- 127
- Languages
- 3