Full length novel; not quite sure when it takes place re the other stories. Before Europe. Right in line with his character, though. ( )

Published in 1909, twenty years after the first Raffles stories, this is clearly, and truly, 'His Last Bow'. A full length novel, the work packs Raffles off to the dominions for good, and for one of the most clichéd reasons.

The story starts with Raffles returning from a visit to a German spa where he tangles with a wealthy Jewish money-lender named Daniel Levy. Initially only interested in Mrs Levy's emeralds, he finds that Levy has a financial hold over a protégé of his who is about to gain a Cambridge cricket Blue. The young man's dire financial straits are distracting him from his wicket-keeping so obviously Raffles must act. It will come as no surprise to anyone acquainted with A.J.R. to learn that his intervention, with his usual cavalier disregard for the niceties of the law, is ultimately effective.

The longer format does not particularly suit the author's style nor the hero himself. I preferred the earlier short stories. The chief interest for me was in the description of Edwardian life style and attitudes. The Jew is seen, in a Buchan-esque way, as an unprincipled usurer, and Hornung runs through the usual selection of uncomplimentary epithets. Perhaps less usual is the occasional respect that Raffles and his biographer and companion, Bunny Manders, express for Levy as an adversary: he is portrayed as a man of physical courage and intelligence.

The London property scene has changed a lot since 1909 and Raffles might find that the rents at the Albany were rather beyond him now. The financially embarrassed wicket-keeper's family home is a large "mullioned and turreted mansion" in "grounds of its own out of all keeping with their metropolitan environment". In the closing part of the story, Raffles and Bunny take refuge in an empty house on the Middlesex bank of the Thames with "a square tower ....... twice the height of the main roof". Bunny recalls that a great man of letters had made his home in the area and asks if this was his house: Raffles confirms this and opines that "it would never let again ...(it) was far too good for its position.... now much too near London." I wonder if Hornung was thinking of Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham, then far from its former glories and soon to be sold to Queen Mary College of London University.

An early example of product placement sticks out with Raffles and Bunny habitually smoking 'Sullivan' cigarettes - Sullivan, Powell and Co. were makers of high-class Turkish cigarettes and had premises in Burlington Arcade, a stone's throw from the Albany. ( )

Feels like an end of series addendum, but works well enough as a standalone once you've got the general idea. Raffles is the famous Gentleman Thief, some independently wealthy son who enjoys a challenge. His memoirs are written by his friend (a la Watson) Bunny. Which is a daft nickname, but sort of appropriate, as he doesn't approach the heights of daring of our hero.

Raffles has a friend form school days who is about to star as Cambridge's Blue wicket keeper in the all important game over Oxford. This lad has got into financial troubles with a money lender, and Raffles looks to use his skills to help out. However the money lender is not so easily taken in and a game of cat and mouse ensues. This is quite protracted and doesn't really seem to tie in together properly, mostly because poor Bunny is left abandoned by Raffles for various periods of time as Raffles works his tricks off scene. There is no grand denouncement either, for Raffles doesn't boost of his accomplishments, we get a few hints that Bunny manage to wheedle out of him at the end.

That said it was fairly fun, if not anything particularly special. there was no great crime, no significant displays of skill or reasoning, but a gentle enjoyment of life at another's expense - one deemed to thoroughly deserve it so don't feel too guilty for doing so. In this day and age of course it would all be a bit too incorrect to be marketable, but given the age it was written in, it could be a lot worse. ( )