Summary
Summary of The Blind Spot
Key ideas
Key idea 1
A stranger has never seen sunlight
Rhamda Avec arrives in San Francisco looking both old and young, carrying a reddish leather satchel. He needs someone to show him how to smoke, and he says he has never seen the sun. Detective Albert Jerome cannot dismiss him as a joker or explain his strange claims.
When sunlight breaks through the fog, Avec stares into it with wonder. He wants to meet Professor Holcomb, a man he says he knows despite never having met him. Jerome offers to guide him, drawn by curiosity and unease.
Key idea 2
A promised proof becomes a disappearance
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Key idea 3
Harry accepts a dangerous promise
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Key idea 4
The search begins to erase Harry
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Key idea 5
A visitor brings hope and danger
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Key idea 6
Experiments draw the clues together
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Key idea 7
Loyalty and evidence carry a cost
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Key idea 8
Different voices reshape the same mystery
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Key idea 9
The unknown reaches beyond the senses
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
Readers who enjoy early science fiction, ghost-story atmosphere and detective chases, and who like puzzles where scientists, skeptics and spiritualists argue over one impossible event in a foggy San Francisco.
What this book is
The Blind Spot is a science fiction adventure by Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint. It opens in San Francisco in September 1905, when a courteous stranger steps off a tram and asks a cigar clerk how to smoke. The stranger calls himself Rhamda Avec. He has never seen a cigarette, and he has never seen the sun.
Within hours, Dr. Holcomb, a famous professor of philosophy at Berkeley, has vanished on the very day he promised to prove the occult by solid, physical means. His promised lecture was to be called The Blind Spot. The book follows the people who chase that promise: a detective, a young lawyer, an engineer, and a circle of scientists, doctors and mediums. They are drawn to a plain house on Chatterton Place, a strange blue jewel, and a bell that rings from nowhere.
You get a mystery told in several voices, with newspaper accounts, a diary, a woman's record and a stenographer's note. It gives you a villain you may not be able to judge, a woman too lovely to trust, and a puzzle that keeps changing shape. Let us begin with the stranger on the ferry.
In this summary
- 1A stranger who has never seen the sunFree
- 2A professor promises proof of the occult
- 3A house, an old woman, and a bell
- 4A lawyer, an engineer, and a dying friend
- 5The ring, the Nervina, and a vanishing
- 6Clues in clay, a dog, and creeping isolation
- 7Hobart takes over, and a girl comes from nowhere
- 8Three days, a committee, and an invisible walker
- 9What the book is really about
- 10How the story is told
Key point 1 of 10
A stranger who has never seen the sun
On a foggy morning in September 1905, a tall man in a black overcoat steps off a tram at the foot of Market Street in San Francisco. He carries a small satchel of reddish leather. People notice him at once, because he looks old and young together, and the longer you look, the younger he seems.
On the Key Route ferry he stops at the cigar stand and asks to buy a cigar. He says it has a little sister, the cigarette, and he asks the clerk to show him how to use one. The clerk is twenty-one and used to jokers, but one look into the stranger's dark, glowing eyes tells him this is no joke. The man has plainly never seen tobacco before.
The clerk points him out to the ferry detective, Albert Jerome. Jerome finds him on the forward deck, swaying like a landsman and peering into the mist. When Jerome mentions the fog and the coming sun, the stranger says calmly that he has never seen the sun, or any other.
The two ride the electric train toward Berkeley. When the sun breaks through, the stranger stares straight into it like a child and is dazzled. He gives his name as Rhamda Avec, and he says he has never been blind in his life. He murmurs that everything around him is wonderful, and that all this time nobody knew it.
He also says he wants to find Dr. Holcomb. They have never met, he says, yet they have known each other a long time. Jerome, who has a detective's hunches, cannot find a reason for the man's odd claims, and he cannot call him insane. Out of curiosity and a vague worry, he offers to guide the stranger to the professor.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Check yourself
What does Professor Holcomb promise to provide?
Right. “Within hours, Dr. Holcomb, a famous professor of philosophy at Berkeley, has vanished on the very day he promised to prove the occult by solid, physical means.”Not quite. “Within hours, Dr. Holcomb, a famous professor of philosophy at Berkeley, has vanished on the very day he promised to prove the occult by solid, physical means.”
Why does Harry agree to take the ring?
Right. “Harry agrees to take the ring, because he loved the professor and cannot refuse a dying friend.”Not quite. “Harry agrees to take the ring, because he loved the professor and cannot refuse a dying friend.”
How does Hobart explain apparently supernatural events?
Right. “Hobart is an engineer who says there is nothing supernatural, only phenomena science has not yet explained.”Not quite. “Hobart is an engineer who says there is nothing supernatural, only phenomena science has not yet explained.”
Questions about The Blind Spot
What is The Blind Spot about?
It follows the disappearance of a Berkeley philosophy professor who promises to prove the occult by physical means. A detective, a lawyer and an engineer pursue a mysterious stranger, a woman and a strange blue jewel to find him.
Who is Rhamda Avec?
He is a tall, ageless stranger who arrives in San Francisco in 1905 and has never seen the sun or tobacco. He meets Professor Holcomb, and then the pair vanish from public view. Who he really is drives much of the plot.
What is the Blind Spot in the story?
It is a place in a house on Chatterton Place where people vanish after a blue dot appears on the ceiling, and a bell rings as it ends. Characters argue whether it is spirit, science or a trick. The novel slowly offers an explanation.
Who is the Nervina?
She is a strikingly beautiful woman who appears beside Rhamda Avec and then tries to get the blue ring from Harry Wendel. She seems both friend and rival to the men. Watson says no man can resist her.
Is The Blind Spot easy to follow?
Yes, its short chapters, shifting narrators and quick pace make it approachable. Newspaper, diary and report styles each give a clear voice, and the plot moves from one puzzling scene to the next with plenty of dialogue.
