The Angel of Terror

Like many people nowadays I had forgotten just how good a writer Edgar Wallace could be. Of course, anyone who produced thrillers in the quantity that Wallace managed would suffer from variable quality but on the whole his standard was high enough to make him one of the consistantly best selling writers of his day. Modern readers must make allowances for the different style of writing prevelent in the Twenties and Thirties, different even from the novels set in that period by current writers such as Jacqueline Winspear and Carola Dunn for example. The Angel of Terror is a good example both of the Twenties style and the work of Wallace who specialised in seemingly unbeatable villains. The story is set amongst the English middle class and involves an inheritance and a beautiful and ruthless young woman who will stop at nothing to get her hands on it. The location moves from London to the South of France giving Wallace's readers the glimpse of the good life that they craved from writers of that period. The heroine stubbornly refuses the warnings of the hero regarding the villain but all is set right in the end. Well, more or less for Wallace produces an ending that defies the demands of the time for a tidy conclusion that fits the expected moral parameters. I will reveal no more. This novel is now re-issued in paperback by bibliobazaar.com. Read and enjoy!