REVIEWED BY WILLIAM F. DEECK: H. C. BAILEY – Call Mr. Fortune. Methuen, UK, hardcover, 1920; Dutton, US, hardcover, 1921. Remploy, UK, hardcover reprint, 1979. Many other reprint editions currently exist. This is the first collection of Reginald Fortune short stories and, if the problems I had getting a copy are any indication, the scarcest one. Six stories are in this volume, and they range in quality from very good to excellent. There are, I might add, no bad or even poor Fortune short stories in any of the collections. “The Criminal Investigation Department, solicitors, and others dealing with those experiments in social reform which are called crimes, by continually appealing to his multifarious knowledge and his all-observant eye, turned Dr. Reginald Fortune, general practitioner at Westhampton, into Mr. Fortune of Wimpole Street, specialist in- — what shall we say?- — the surgery of crime. And Reggie Fortune, though richer for the change, was not grateful. He liked ordinary…
No comments yet. Log in to reply on the Fediverse. Comments will appear here.