The Valley of Ghosts by Edgar WallaceMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Read as a distraction while bored by a more worthy book, and I don't regret it, even though the ending is a bit weak.
It almost got my "not-solved-by-detective" tag, though it doesn't quite qualify because the detective does solve the case, albeit by lying in wait for the criminal and watching as he re-enacts the crime while sleepwalking. It also almost qualifies for my "thin-romance" tag, because the detective falls in love with a woman and is prepared to compromise his professional integrity to help her escape when he thinks she's the murderer, even though (as she herself explicitly notes) they have only met three times and exchanged about a dozen words. I keep "thin-romance" for cases where the couple get married after about that much interaction, though, and they do get to know each other over time after that first ridiculous declaration.
The characters are, as usual with Wallace, interesting and not purely stock. There's the reforming jewel thief, the man with a mysterious occupation who turns out to be (view spoiler), the detective himself who is a pathologist who's somehow ended up becoming an investigator, and his love interest, the daughter of an alcoholic artist who has, in the way of children of alcoholics, learned to cope with unpredictability and the cycle of bad behaviour and seemingly-sincere penitence that just keeps on repeating. The suspect for the murder is a mysterious moneylender, a type of person Wallace probably had unpleasant experience of, since he was often in debt because of gambling. This particular one is remarkable for never being seen and doing all of his business (which seems to involve blackmail as well) via letter.
There's a brief mention of "Reeder," and if, as seems probable, this is J.G. Reeder, one of Wallace's few recurring characters, this places the book within a wider Edgar Wallace Universe.
It's suitably mysterious and complicated, only has one significant coincidence which speeds up part of the plot rather than completely enabling it, and is in general a fun time.
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