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A notorious assassin returns to London to avenge the death of his sister in this classic crime thriller. Word had come from Australia that the Ringer was dead. The body of the legendary killer had been pulled from Sydney Harbor-or so it was thought. In reality, it is the Ringer's sister whose fate is a watery grave. Left in the care of Maurice Meister, a London lawyer for whom she worked as a secretary, she has turned up dead in the Thames-and now the Ringer is on a mission of vengeance. The show more vigilante walks the streets of the city again, and if the past is any indication, Inspector Wembury of Scotland Yard won't have an easy time tracking him down. To complicate matters further, Meister is currently employed by the socially prominent family of the woman Wembury loves ...The basis for no less than five European films, this suspenseful British novel comes from one the early twentieth century's most popular writers of crime fiction. show lessTags
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One from the husband's shelves this time, picked up as it fitted and TIOLI challenge and I wanted a change. It was a bit of an odd mixture of social commentary, romance and thriller. But I'm not sure that it didn't actually work. I had my beady eye on the wrong person though.
Alan Wembury has just been promoted and is in charge of division R, which is mostly Deptford. Nice. He returns to hi home to tell his childhood friend the good news, she happens to be the daughter of the big house, upon whose estate his father was head gardener (see what I mean about social commentary? It would have been a bit startling in the 20s all that kind of thing). He comes across her brother (a dense piece of snobbery if ever I met one) and a lawyer (slimy show more as a very very slimy thing). There's some business with a society theft, and some past history with a murderer who is a whizz with disguises and whose sister was the lawyers secretary until she "committed suicide" (yeah right). It all gets a bit twisted, there's some confusion at times as to who is in the room and speaking (I'm sure Mary enters a room she's already in at one point). Having said that though, it was a fun, fast and somewhat entertaining read. Not high literature by any stretch of the imagination, but fast & furious and with some heart. show less
Alan Wembury has just been promoted and is in charge of division R, which is mostly Deptford. Nice. He returns to hi home to tell his childhood friend the good news, she happens to be the daughter of the big house, upon whose estate his father was head gardener (see what I mean about social commentary? It would have been a bit startling in the 20s all that kind of thing). He comes across her brother (a dense piece of snobbery if ever I met one) and a lawyer (slimy show more as a very very slimy thing). There's some business with a society theft, and some past history with a murderer who is a whizz with disguises and whose sister was the lawyers secretary until she "committed suicide" (yeah right). It all gets a bit twisted, there's some confusion at times as to who is in the room and speaking (I'm sure Mary enters a room she's already in at one point). Having said that though, it was a fun, fast and somewhat entertaining read. Not high literature by any stretch of the imagination, but fast & furious and with some heart. show less
The Ringer is a mysterious criminal said to be a master of disguise who is believed to be after revenge on a crooked lawyer.
Der altmodische Charme, den dieser Klassiker haben soll, hat sich mir nicht erschlossen - im Gegenteil zur Verfilmung, die mir sehr gut gefallen hatte.
Jun 5, 2011German
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Books mentioned in Julian Symons’ Bloody Murder
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Author Information
528+ Works 10,155 Members
Among the most prolific of all authors of adventure fiction was the redoubtable Edgar Wallace. Born in London, Wallace received his early education at St. Peter's School and the Board School. Wallace served in the Royal West Kent Regiment in England and later as part of the Medical Staff Corps stationed in South Africa. During World War I, Wallace show more acted as a special interrogator for the War Office. As was the case with a number of successful popular authors, Wallace experienced a rich and diverse life before turning to professional writing. From 1886 to the 1930s, he worked in a printing shop, a shoe shop, and a rubber factory, and served as a merchant sailor and milk deliverer. Beginning in 1899, Wallace became a journalist and wrote variously for the London Daily Mail and the Rand Daily News, among others; he also worked with the racing periodicals, having founded two of them---Bibury's Weekly and R. E. Walton's Weekly. Like Sax Rohmer, Wallace earned a fortune from his writings, yet, because of a lack of business sense and a tendency to overspend, he died in debt. A prodigious writer of fiction, Wallace published, over the course of his professional life, some 173 books and wrote 17 plays. Many of his adventure narratives featured elements of crime or mystery, but they all thrived on action. Although Wallace's handling of plot was superb and he was respected for his ability to blend suspense with humor, he was less successful with his characters, who tended to be two-dimensional and stereotyped. One of his early crime adventures, The Four Just Men (1906), introduced what was to become a trademark for Wallace---lurid sensationalism coupled with dramatic violence. Wallace published in a wide range of genres, including poetry, short fiction, autobiography, and epic political history. Regrettably, much of what he wrote has lapsed into obscurity today. As sometimes is the problem with popular fiction, perhaps it was too hurriedly written---too intimately connected with its contemporary audience---to stand the ultimate test of time. But Wallace's work was highly influential, especially in the American pulp magazine markets of the Great Depression, and stands today, despite its many flaws, as some of the most effective literary adventures ever written. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Selected Novels (The Four Just Men / Sanders of the River / The Angel of Terror / The Dark Eyes of London / The Ringer / The Avenger / The Gunner / On the Spot / The Devil Man) by Edgar Wallace
The Ringer / When the Gangs Came to London / White Face / The India-Rubber Men / The Man Who Knew by Edgar Wallace
The Ringer / The Black Abbot / The Fellowship of the Frog / The India-Rubber Men / The Green Archer by Edgar Wallace
Has the adaptation
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Ringer; The Gaunt Stranger
- Original title
- The Gaunt Stranger
- Alternate titles*
- Geschichten vom Hexer
- Original publication date
- 1926
- Original language
- English UK
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- Reviews
- 3
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- (3.36)
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- 23 — Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 31
- ASINs
- 28
