The Crime-Book Society No. 6
Sydney Horler (1888-1954) has not had a good press from his more famous peers. Literary reviewers of the time, such as Compton Mackenzie and Dorothy L. Sayers were dismissive of his work, while more recent critics have been even more scathing, calling his plots unbelievable and among the worst of British thriller writers. Born in Leytonstone, Essex he was educated at Colston School in Bristol. His first job was with the Western Daily Press in 1905. He later moved to London to write for the Daily Mail, but also worked in the propaganda section of Air Intelligence in the Great War. After the war he became a sub editor of the John O'London's Weekly; he left in 1919 after a big row with the editor. He decided to become a full-time writer, and made his name with his first crime novel, The Mystery of No. 1 in 1925. It is clear that writers such as Edgar Wallace and 'Sapper' influenced his works, which became hugely successful. According to A.E. Wilson, friend of Horler from an early age, Edgar Wallace had remarked, That fellow Horler is going to be a dangerous rival. By the 1930s, his books had sold an estimated two million copies. He wrote around 158 novels. Often being serialised in the News of the World, the stories reached the biggest newspaper readership in the country. He died in a Bournemouth Nursing Home in 1954.
Colin Watson, in his compelling, if slightly controversial, book, Snobbery with Violence, Crime Stories and their Audience (1971) has a whole chapter devoted to the author, entitled Excitable Sydney Horler. Watson argued that Horler's work owed more to 'Sapper' than to Wallace. It was breathless, trashy stuff, vitalised by the deeds and chatter of such super-heroes as his Tiger Standish...who could have been Bulldog Drummond's twin brother... just as he has a way with a girl, so he has a way with an enemy. A terror to his enemies, a hero to his valet and a male-angel to his wife! Standish epitomised the aggressive masculinity that Horler, and many of his readers, found reassuring. Effeminacy was reprehensible and was linked to vegetarianism and even classical music! Pacifist novelists were wasting their time and talents. It was Tiger Standish who, perhaps, most represented Horler's outlook and credo. In a dozen books - from Tiger Standish (1932) to House of Jackals (1951) - his hero bestrode the stage almost like a superman.
We first meet him on the football field, playing for the Swifts - the famous Metropolitan team - against Aston Villa; he is being cheered on by 50,000 hysterical enthusiasts. With just two minutes to go, the score stands at 1-1; can the five feet eleven inches high, twelve stone two pounds of bone and muscle "Tiger" score a winner? Of course he can. Horler was also a football journalist, so he knew his onions. Tiger, the most talked-of amateur footballer in the country, has been brought in to plug a weakness - the centre forward position. Although the other, professional, players may have cavilled, they all come round to acknowledging that the son of Lord Quorn wasn't too bad after all. Moreover, after the match, Tiger strips in the changing room: he was as personable naked as he was clothed - there was blood and race about the lean flanks, the slim waist, and the muscular chest. Here was a man, one could be ready to swear, who treated his body with the respect it deserved. No wonder so many others did too. A pity about the ugly face with its scar on the left cheek, but that seemed to add to his attraction! Certainly the bandy-legged, 42 year-old "Benny" Bannister, an ex-professional football player with twenty years' experience and now Tiger's loyal servant, thought so.
Tiger lives in a spacious 375 Portland Place flat, served by Benny; Mrs McTaggert - the Scottish housekeeper; and Kitty, the Irish maid (who, inevitably, secretly has a crush on him). Tiger, however, has no intention of ever getting married. Add to this group Richard the Lion, the half-Persian cat, and you have a scene of very English upper class bliss. All this to to be shattered by Sir Harker Bellamy, Chief of Q. I, a branch of the British Secret Service, (Bellamy has already featured in three other of the author's books). He has another 'job' for Tiger (shades of James Bond), a Secret Service freelancer, which means travelling to Italy. The only reason this does not happen is because Tiger subsequently receives a letter from an "S.D." asking for help: All the world is calling you a sportsman. If you are what the newspapers claim you to be, would Tiger help the writer! Of course he will. A cry for help outside his flat settles it. It is S.D., who is about to be kidnapped. Tiger sprints to the rescue. She was in a bad way, leaning against a lamp-post. Tiger noticed dark rings beneath her eyes, saw the droop of the lovely mouth, and felt steeped in compunction. And so begins a rip-roaring tale of British pluck, both from Tiger and S.D., now revealed as Sonia Devenish, who is being pursued by the devilish Three.
Two of the three suddenly request admittance: 16 stone Hamme, a mixture of well-bred gentleman and country oaf...stout of body, but weakish of brain; and the Italian Dr. Carlimero, a small, pernickety, neat gigolo type which Tiger loathed! There is no room for a positive attitude about foreigners in Tiger's or Horler's mindset. In fact, at least two references to Jews are positively anti-Semitic; an attitude the author was well-known for in real life. Typically, the story is one of 'baddies' trying to recover jewels (the Waterbury rubies). Sonia's stepfather apparently double-crossed them just before he died (suicide whilst of unsound mind. Hmm.) and the Three think Sonia knows where the jewels are hidden. The tale drags in other interesting characters (mostly bordering on caricatures) - an older friend of Sonia's; a two-bit actress acquaintance of Tiger's; Sonia's stepfather's lawyer; an American named Scarpio - this Overlord of the American Underworld - (who, urged by the lust of possession, has come over to collect the loot) and the Mr. Big of the 'Three'. Throughout the book, Horler's strengths and failings as a writer shine brightly. Almost virulently xenophobic and contemptuous of the common herd, his attitudes do not read well a century later, but they may well have been prevalent between the two world wars. Certainly, his books were immensely popular. Maybe they were caricatures, but his characters are quite good fun and his narrative style has some pace to it. One can see why he would have been invited to dinner by Edgar Wallace rather than Dorothy L. Sayers.
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