Review of The Red-Headed Man

28 Aug 2019 - Courtney Floyd

Published in The Athenaeum (9 Dec. 1899)

The mysterious murder and the detective, and various melodramatic situations, all of a somewhat familiar description, fill the pages of Fergus Hume’s volume The Red-Headed Man (Digby, Long & Co.). Even the insignia of the secret society which wishes its victims to be identified are not wanting, and there are a few more or less well-developed love affairs. And yet there is no reason (excepting the possibility of excess) why this type of fiction should not please. It is in Mr. Fergus Hume’s hands quite harmless, and often ingenious. The reader can only complain that he is familiar with most of its surprises and with the methods by which they are brought about. We prefer it, however, to the same writer’s ‘The Rainbow Feather.’ There are quite a number of misprints. ‘She bit her lid’ is not without its sense of humour; and ‘profits’ is, on another page, a very probably mistake for prophets.