My grandfather used to tell us kids (grandchildren) adventure stories. Our favourite stories were about the explorers, Jack Sam and Pete though Pop varied the diet....depending on what he happened to be reading at the moment ...and somewhat on his memory of reading Penny Dreadfuls in London. We loved these stories ...even if they came with the occasional inconsistency .....and constantly pestered him for another story. I recall that one of his sequence of stories was about "Sexton Blake". I'd certainly heard of Sherlock Holmes and before I was about 14 I had read various anthologies of Sherlock Holmes stories. But I'd never actually come across a Sexton Blake story....so, when I saw this at a pretty good price at Berkelow's, I bought it. And I've not been disappointed. I learned that the Sexton Blake stories were written by a whole host of different writers and were just churned out for the various weekly newspapers or magazines. Some were written as full length novels. They modelled themselves on the sleuth of Baker Street.....and, in fact, Sexton Blake even moved into Baker Street. This particular collection has nine stories and I've just read four of them,: sufficient to give me a pretty good idea of the calibre and style of the genre. Yes....pretty much like Pop's stories.....racy, full of action and surprises, Somewhat devoid of overriding moral principles ....apart from "crime does not pay".....and even the most cunning of villains was no match, in the end, for Sexton Blake and Tinker. (Both Tinker and my grandfather seemed to share a common heritage in Cockney London).
The style is overwrought with adjectives viz:`"The solicitor's companion was a spare, angular man, dressed in dark clothes of old-fashioned cut". But they are great stories. I found myself reading them at great pace and more or less unable to put them down. the formula is the same as in Sherlock Holmes:.....some mysterious happenings, impossible to see the connections until Sexton Blake comes on the scene and starts to apply his analytical genius. All is revealed in the last few paragraphs....how the villains did it and how they are brought to justice. Frequent violence and the use of revolvers. I found myself, wondering how they would be able to do that in England....leaving bodies and wounded behind them and travelling internationally with their weapons. But, hey! this is escapism not an essay in logic.
I enjoyed the stories that I read. But four was enough. I now see where Pop was able to draw on his misspent youth reading penny dreadfuls (he left home at 14 and went to sea.....never returning to the family home....... for the last 60 years of his life, anyway)......and produce such wonderful adventure stories for us kids. It's not great literature but it is fun: Four stars from me. ( )

A small review of one the stories of this collection:
Rex Hardinge, The man I Killed.
Hardinge's stories are often repetitive and formulaic. But this one isn't. It's an inverted mystery, we know the murderer from the outset. Indeed, he tells us his story in first person, the story of his 'perfect' crime. His friend Sexton Blake himself, he planned, should provide his alibi. The suspense arises not from whodunit but from watching Sexton Blake discovering how it was done. The main mystery, why it was done, is only revealed at the end.
And we learn something astonishing about Blake. He plays the violin so good "he could justifiably have made it his profession". Even in his recreations he is superior to the other Baker Street detective.
This is certainly one of the best stories Hardinge has written.