Peter Cheyney is perhaps best known for his short stories and novels about agent/detective Lemmy Caution. Caution was first portrayed as a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent, and in later stories as a private detective.Another popular creation was the private detective Slim Callaghan who also appeared in a series of novels and subsequent film adaptations. He was constructed as a British response to the more hardboiled detectives of American fiction such as Sam Spade and Phi...

VALLON came out of his bedroom; closed the door; stood for a moment in the corridor. The scent hit his nostrils— Narcisse Noir. Vallon, who had a nose for perfume, wondered when he had last smelt Narcisse Noir. He thought it might have been in Paris. He wasn't certain. He walked slowly down the curving staircase into the hotel lounge; stood at the bottom looking about him, watching the people.He wore a dark blue, double-breasted suit that had been cut by a good tailor, a cream shirt...

THE yellow mist seeped into the Place des Roses; bringing an almost evil quality to the cul-de-sac; rising only a few feet from the ground; creating the impression that there were no foundations to the small, dirty dilapidated houses.At the end of the cul-de-sac a thin knife-edge of light showed under the door of the wine shop. Inside the shop, which was dimly lit by an oil lamp, Fours leant over the counter at the end; regarded the board floor. About the place was the acrid smell o...

The sinister business of counter-espionage is played out by an array of magnificent characters in this one of Cheyney's very best efforts.A classic of Golden Age detective, mystery and spy novels...'If there are better thrillers it is hardly possible to think of them while under the spell of this one' Times Literary Supplemen

Bellamy slid off the high stool, walked unsteadily to the window and stood swaying on his heels looking down at the snow, on Conduit Street. The bar-tender mixed himself a whisky and soda and began to polish the chromium counter. Bellamy turned, and leaned against the window, looking at the bar-tender.He was tall, slim and dark. He looked immaculate although his quiet grey suit was old. There were circles under his eyes. He looked very tired, slightly depraved. His big brown eyes we...

SHAUN ALOYSIUS O'MARA came round the shadow of the low wall that bounded the end of the little church. He stepped unsteadily over the wall; began to walk through the small graveyard towards the yew-tree grove.It was hot. The sun beat down pitilessly; there was no air. O'Mara stumbled over a low headstone, cursed horribly; saw over his shoulder the short figure of the curé; the dingy worn and shiny soutane; the thin white face.He began to laugh. He laughed at the priest. He be...

THE office was a small, square room on a third floor near Golden Square. It was sombre and unassuming. The furniture was nondescript. A suggestion of efficiency was provided by a steel filing-cabinet.Outside, between this office and the corridor, was another even smaller room. In it MacMurray, a big, broad-shouldered, truculent-looking man, dozed over an evening paper. He wished Fenton would go home.MacMurray— who had been "lent" by C.I.D. Central Office, and who spent most o...

FOURTEEN miles off the tail end of Andros Island in the Bahamas lies the island called Dark Bahama—which, says the guide book, is a natural paradise.Day and night the golden sand beaches, the calm inlets, the palms, the cats-tail trees, are bathed in sunlight and moonshine—especially moonshine. It is always summer except when a half-hurricane strikes in the season and the drunks have another excuse for nerve troubles.

A FILM director, seeking a ghostly scene for some macabre film, would have acclaimed the location of the Box of Compasses.It stood, set back fifty yards from the deserted cross-roads, one arm of which dwindled away past the wooded crest of the hill; turned itself into a footpath and disappeared amongst the scrub on the cliff top. One arm ran into the moorland; the other wound past the inn and broadened on its way to the town. There was no shelter from the wind. The ramshackle buildi...

LADIES and gentlemen, I present to you Vincente Maria Jesu Callao.The business of a personal introduction seems necessary because he was the spring— however unconscious— that set in movement the rather peculiar actions of most of the people concerned in the business of the Dark Wanton.A relatively uninteresting person, he becomes interesting, not for what he was, but rather for what he was not. Callao was born in Andalusia in 1913. There appeared to be some doubt about his pa...

Peter Cheyney does an excellent job of conveying the world of spying, with all its twists and double crosses. No one is what he seems, and everyone knows that; but no one is sure just what anyone else really is. This is one of the best in the "Dark" Series of espionage novels.

KALEIDOSCOPIC pictures of last night's party presented themselves between myself and the ceiling. One or two faces— one of them was certainly Sammy's face, the other that of an attractive woman— flashed across my memory. I felt a little sick and did not want particularly to think about them. In fact I did not want to think about anything.You wouldn't get any funny ideas about me, would you? You wouldn't come to the conclusion that I was just another of those people who've become bor...