Review: Sexton Blake's Allies

Sexton Blake's Allies by Mark Hodder
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I recognised the name Sexton Blake, although I had not read any of the books or seen the 1960s tv series, and so I took a chance and requested an ARC as I am a fan of late 19th/early 2oth century detective novels.

What I hadn't appreciated was that the Sexton Blake 'franchise' (for want of a better word) spanned 85 years, 4,000 stories and around 200 different authors (thank you Wikipedia). This book is a collection of three short stories featuring three of Sexton Blake's allies.

The first story, featuring James 'Granite' Grant involves a trip on the Orient Express, a cockney criminal, stolen jewels and a secret society. I quite enjoyed it, but I actually thought it would have been better as a full-length novel because it relied quite heavily on two different people having the same 'thing' in order to unravel the mystery. It also felt as though the story was over before it was begun, too much 'cor blimey guv' dialogue and desperate chases across Europe and not enough detection. I also found it telling that the editor felt it necessary to tell the reader that he had excised numerous repetitions of 'Sonny' from Granite Grant's dialogue.

I'm afraid I gave up on the second story as it featured a mysterious murder by what appears to be death driving a truck, and then inexplicably cut to a criminal being released from Sing-Sing after spending 7 years in jail for robbery. The difference between the two writing styles was too jarring and as an entry into Sexton Blake's world I found it all a bit bewildering.

Overall, this felt a bit like fan fiction, featuring minor characters, set the story in any place at any time, change up the writing style and just tag it 'Allies of Sexton Blake'. I would say this is aimed more at fans of Sexton Blake who want something more. I certainly didn't get any indication that Sexton Blake was as brilliant as Sherlock Holmes or as daring as James Bond in what I read, in fact he seemed incidental to the plots.

Lovely cover though.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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