Raffles Book

January 2011

Good news, Americans! You don't have to know anything about cricket to read and enjoy this!

Meet A. J. Raffles: gentleman, independent bachelor, London man-about-town, champion cricketeer--er, cricketman--I mean, player-of-cricket--and...thief? Surely not! Surely so: how else could this gentleman of leisure afford to play poor man's baseball--I mean, cricket, sorry--whenever he likes? One must make money somehow, God wot, and Raffles' way is only slightly more dishonest than others. In this first volume of the Raffles Series (which hasn't been easy to find, let me tell you), Raffles, along with Harry "Bunny" Mander, his former public school chum and current partner in crime, commits astonishing acts of burglary across London and beyond. Lock up your diamonds! Hide your jewels! Raffles is in town!

(Seriously, guys, someone is going to have to explain this cricket thing)

I think I'm afraid to read Sherlock Holmes. Why else would I keep tiptoeing around those stories? First it was the Brigadier Gerard stories (by Arthur Conan Doyle, no less) last month, and now this book--by Doyle's brother-in-law. I have my eye on the Flashman stories next. When am I going to quit these crime-and-adventure stories and settle for the great detective? Hard to say. Soon, though. Soonish. Eventually.

See also: The Collected Raffles