Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces by Thomas W. HanshewMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a recommendation from my wife, who listens to a lot of older books on Librevox.
Cleek is a classic pulp hero: he has an unlikely power, which is to be able to reshape his face without using makeup or prosthetics so that he can look completely different (and can even look like other people, presumably with a bit of extra work on wigs, false moustaches, clothes, padding and so forth, though this isn't really gone into). At the start of the book, he's using this ability, and his considerable intelligence, to commit crimes, but he meets a woman, falls for her, and determines to reform.
Based on Cleek's bare, unsupported word and apparently on his own authority, a Scotland Yard inspector accepts that this notorious criminal is setting out to reform and gives him a position as a detective that appears to be semi-official; he doesn't seem to be a regular member of the force, but he's offered cases and has an ID that the police recognize. Even though he was well known, under the same name, as a criminal to both the police and the newspapers, after his reformation those same police and newspapers celebrate him as a detective; he doesn't appear to suffer any public consequences for his past crimes (it turns out that he is using any money he earns to compensate his victims, but he does this secretly).
There's a reveal about his background at the end of the book that plays into a trope I dislike. (view spoiler) Also, the author is increasingly vague about details the further east of Suffolk he gets; his fictional European country is French-speaking but has Eastern European elements, his Sri Lankan Sinhalese people speak Hindustani rather than Sinhala and their Buddhism feels like a mishmash of what a not-very-well-informed English person would know about Hinduism and Islam, and a devout Turkish Muslim woman twice refers to her "gods," even though strict monotheism is one of the most famous tenets of Islam. (view spoiler)
All of this kept the book out of the Silver tier of my recommendation list, but it's still a ripping pulp adventure, full of larger-than-life characters, tension, drama and dastardly plots cleverly detected. The plots do tend to have a certain sameness about them, in that they are frequently about gaining money through inheritance, but not all of them are like that, and even within that formula there's variation.
With more pleasant characters (for my taste) than Raffles, though not as well written as Arsene Lupin, these stories are worth a read if you're willing to go along with the pulpiness and just enjoy the ride.
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