Review: The Girl from Scotland Yard

The Girl from Scotland Yard by Edgar Wallace
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Wallace was prolific, but he wasn't just a hack. He didn't spew a bunch of tropes across the page, he didn't write to a formula, and what's more, for his time, the level of racism and sexism is remarkably low for the most part. Foreigners are not inevitably villains (or vice versa), and women can be intelligent, capable and effective.

Specifically, the woman of the (variant) title, even if she's called "the girl from Scotland Yard," is capable, sensible and admirable. Because the commissioners are old fuddy-duddies, she isn't recognized as a detective officially; she's the "assistant" to one of the detectives, an old friend of her father's who acts as a mentor to her, but respects her skills. She has a considerable ability to notice things and draw conclusions, and a fearless, matter-of-fact manner which plays well when she's interviewing suspects.

The plot is complicated, and to lay it all out would quickly get us into spoiler territory, but there's a woman who lived as a man, an ex-convict who people keep trying to frame, his awful mother, several more or less ruthless aristocratic women and a rather feeble hanger-on of theirs, a murder, bigamy, blackmail, a stolen emerald necklace (hence the other title, The Square Emerald), a fence and baby farmer, missing children, several Indonesian men who appear to be up to no good... Yes, the Asian men are on the antagonist side, and are frequently described as "yellow" and once compared (by a character) to monkeys, which is more racist than Wallace usually is. But they are not the actual villains, just servants who are doing what they're told. The villains are British.

Through all of this, Lesley, the unrecognized Scotland Yard detective, navigates, for the most part calmly and surely. There's plenty of action, the mystery is mysterious, and there are some touching moments.

However, there are a couple of giant coincidences that don't just help the plot along, they're essential to its very existence. (view spoiler)[Lesley finds a book at a house where she happens to be staying which gives her the initial clue to the entire mystery, but isn't what gets her involved. And then Peter, the ex-con, happens by complete chance to take lodgings at a house which is owned by someone who is closely involved in the plot, and where someone else very important to the plot lives. (hide spoiler)] Not only that, but Lesley is one of those detectives who jumps to correct conclusions on what, honestly, is inadequate evidence. I never felt completely engaged with the plot and the characters either, for some reason, and all of this together (plus the more-obtrusive-than-usual 1920s racism) drags it down below the usual level of Wallace's books and puts it only in the Bronze tier of my annual recommendation list.

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