Edgar Wallace’s The Council of Justice – Better Than the First

Book #35 of 2024

In my post on Edgar Wallace’s The Four Just Men, I wrote that I would give the series one more chance before I gave up on it. The Council Of Justice (1908) is Wallace’s second installment, and it is a great improvement. For one thing, the targets of the Four Just Men are a little more deserving this time: the Red Hundred, a notorious international group of anarchists, bent on overthrowing British society.

George Manfred, Leon Gonsalez, and Poiccart return, and this time they are joined by a man who goes by Courtlander, but he is actually the Prince of the Escorials. Together, they confound and prevent all the nefarious plots of the Red Hundred. Inspector Falmouth, another character who returns from The Four Just Men is in a quandary: he knows they kill people with no legal justification, but he also realizes that without their work England would be in dire straits.

One of the leaders of the Red Hundred is The Woman of Grantz, a beautiful femme fatale who, of course, falls in love with George Manfred as she betrays him to the police. The latter half of the novel is taken up with Manfred in prison, awaiting trial and under extraordinary guard, as Gonsalez and Poiccart plot to spring him out. Manfred never doubts they will be successful, to the point that the prison warden thinks he is insane.

The trial of Manfred is somewhat weird, as Manfred refuses legal counsel and never enters a plea. Everyone pretty much appreciates the killings he and his fellow conspirators have carried out, but they are compelled by the legal system to try him and convict him. Manfred is so confident he will escape, he doesn’t bother to participate in his own trial.

Wallace’s style is overly dramatic and cliched at times, and his moral sense is definitely fuzzy, but The Council Of Justice is a much better read than The Four Just Men. That said, I don’t think I’ll be reading any more novels in this series – there are too many better books out there, and life is short! [Here’s an interesting bit of trivia: Edgar Wallace was one of the original screenwriters for the 1933 movie, King Kong.]

Edgar Wallace’s Four Just Men – Heroes or Psychopaths?

Book #33 of 2024

In one of my favorite P. G. Wodehouse novels, Freddie Threepwood mentions how much he likes reading thrillers by Edgar Wallace. I was browsing through Standard Ebooks catalog of free books, and I noticed it contained quite a few of Wallace’s works. So, I downloaded his first novel, The Four Just Men (1905), and settled down to read it.

It’s a relatively short work and a quick read. That’s about the most complimentary thing I can say about it, though. The premise of the story is one of the most unattractive I’ve ever come across. The Four Just Men are three men – George Manfred, Leon Gonsalez, and Poiccart – as well as a temporary (and largely unwilling) accomplice – Thery. They are so wealthy that they can travel all over the world without a care. However, they have taken it upon themselves to dispense justice to evildoers who get away with foul deeds. As Manfred explains to Thery:

“We kill for justice, which lifts us out of the ruck of professional slayers. When we see an unjust man oppressing his fellows; when we see an evil thing done against the good God” – Thery crossed himself, “and against man – and know that by the laws of man this evildoer may escape punishment – we punish.” (Loc. 67, Standard Ebooks edition)

So far, so good, and one example Manfred gives of their justice is the case of a priest who kidnapped a young girl in order to keep her as his sex slave. They tracked him down and killed him, after it was clear he would never be arrested.

The problem with The Four Just Men is that the current target of their vigilante justice is a British foreign secretary – Sir Philip Ramon – who is introducing a bill in parliament that would allow the extradition of political refugees to their repressive home countries. Not a nice thing, but certainly not deserving of death! Manfred, Gonsalez, and Poiccart are convinced that they can frighten Ramon enough to withdraw the bill. To accomplish this, they pull stunts like planting a bomb in the parliament members’ lounge and notifying the police. This isn’t justice, it’s terrorism.

Despite extraordinary efforts by the London police and some setbacks in their plot, the Four Just Men succeed in killing Ramon and disappearing into Europe. Their method of murder is a classic “locked room” mystery, but it isn’t too difficult to figure out how they did it. In collateral damage, poor Thery is killed in the process. They also murder a pickpocket who had the bad luck to lift Poiccart’s notebook, which contained details of their plot. These guys aren’t heroes, they’re psychopaths.

Wallace has managed to create the most unsympathetic protagonists of any book I’ve read. I understand that he was very prolific and popular for his time, but The Four Just Men is not very enjoyable. I kept wondering if there would be an interesting twist near the end, when all of their mayhem would be seen to serve a larger purpose. Nope. I may read the next book in the series to see if Wallace redeems them in any way, but I’m glad it won’t cost me anything except a little time!