One of the most remarkable aspects of the writers of the modern American popular fiction is their amazing fruitfulness. These facile craftsmen turn out countless novels year after year without ever seeming to run dry. For a month or two their books are displayed on the shelves and in the windows of the Booksellers and then are seen no more. In theme these pleasant ephemers of the fiction world cover a wide variety of subjects. They include tales of the sea, the Far West, murder mysteries, divorce and society scandal. And each of these, it would seem, has its own coterie of readers, for the books sell and make money for the author and publisher alike.

Edgar Wallace's latest opus, The Sinister Man, is of this stamp. This prolific writer's seventeenth novel does not differ appreciably from his first either in contents or in form. It is an interesting story about dope smuggling in England and is done in the usual style of such tales. In so far as technique and style are concerned The Sinister Man is the work of an exceedingly competent craftsman. Mr. Wallace's novel is unmarred by bad phrasing, obvious heroics or objectionable platitudes. It will, in all likelihood, prove a temporary diversion for the average reader of modern-day fiction.

The background of the novel is laid in modern-day London. Scotland Yard has been exerting all its cunning in an endeavor to run to earth the principals of two powerful opium gangs which are flooding the city with illicit drugs. These are engaged in a death struggle between themselves for the supremacy of the dope-smuggling field in Great Britain. Every effort has been made by the detectives to break up this sordid trade and to apprehend the ringleaders. None of these attempts, however, has been successful. The detectives have at last resigned themselves to passive watchfulness and the shadowing of the several persons suspected of having connections with either of the nefarious organizations.

The man most suspected by the opium squad is a certain Major Amery, President of a well-known firm of importers. Rumor has it that this sinister figure is the mythical Soyoka, the head of the larger and more powerful of the two gangs. Lean, dark, grim, forbidding, this character is the hub around which the interest and action of the story revolve. Ostensibly the villain of the piece, Major Amery is in the end neatly turned by the author from the role of potential villain to that of the avenging hero. Mr. Wallace shows himself a very capable craftsman in this transformation. The change is made cleverly and without any obvious break.

There is a girl in the story, of course. Elsa Marlowe is rather a conventional type. Her role as Major Amery's secretary consists largely of a series of inward rebellings against that ruthless person's impersonal and somewhat tyrannical manner of ordering her about, and although she tells herself vehemently that she hates Major Amery Elsa really loves him. When his enemies plant contraband narcotics in his office and inform the police of their presence the girl rises nobly to the occasion and saves her employer from arrest, though she is not at all certain of his innocence. And after all the shooting is over, Soyoka killed, and the dope-smuggling gangs dispersed the cold and indifferent Major suddenly becomes aware that he—but surely you can guess the rest.

A far more interesting character is that of Soyoka. The author presents this conscienceless murderer as Mr. Tupperwill, President of a private bank in London. Mr. Tupperwill is comfortably stout, extremely regular in his personal habits, and quite mild and inoffensive in manner. Unfortunately, this character is not developed along with the story, and his introduction at the end as the infamous Soyoka is far too abrupt to be convincing.