8 h 17 minAudiobook11 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 8 h 17 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
When the law cannot reach a criminal, who has the right to punish?
Jack O' Judgment by Edgar Wallace draws you into a shadowy criminal underworld, where the pull of justice meets the urge for vengeance. Crooks, detectives and ordinary citizens live close together. Dark corners and hidden meetings make this a world where people are not always what they seem.
Wallace brings a reporter's sense of pace to crime fiction. Streets and rooms feel concrete, while short chapters keep you moving toward the next clue or surprise. Beneath that forward rush lies an uneasy question: where does justice end and private punishment begin? The tension gives you more than a puzzle to follow.
What you’ll discover
- A world of shadows Step into an underworld of hidden meetings, where appearances offer little comfort.
- Justice against vengeance Consider what happens when the desire to punish reaches beyond the law.
- A reporter's sharp eye Discover Wallace's concrete streets and rooms, shaped by his instinct for holding attention.
- Clues that pull you onward Follow the clues and surprises that give this old-fashioned crime thriller its momentum.
- One more short chapter Feel the pull of chapter endings that make stopping a little harder.
Who will love it
For readers who like a masked avenger, a cunning crime boss and a detective who keeps his temper, and who enjoy old London streets, fast plots and villains who talk too much.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A dead man and a playing card
- The gang and its masked visitor
- A trial, a poisoned glass and a girl's choice
- Snares for a girl and a mill owner
- Kidnap, a trap and a hanging
- The nursing home and Pinto's bad night
- The gang starts to break
- What the story is really about
- How the book is told
Who’s who
- Colonel Dan BoundaryThe slow-spoken, ruthless head of the Boundary Gang, who buys businesses for next to nothing from people he has trapped, and who fears only the masked stranger.
- Stafford KingA calm, honest chief of the Criminal Intelligence Department who has spent three years trying to break the gang, and who loves Maisie White.
- Maisie WhiteA gifted mimic and stage performer, daughter of a gang founder, who wants to clear her father's name and undo some of the gang's harm.
- Jack o' JudgmentA masked figure in black silk who leaves a Knave of Clubs wherever he strikes, mocks the gang and wants them punished.
- Pinto SilvaThe colonel's vain Portuguese partner, who owns the Orpheum Theatre, wants Maisie for himself and is more frightened than he admits.
- Swell CreweA former gentleman turned thief, proud of his suits, who grows tired of the gang and wants to leave.
- Lollie MarshA baby-faced decoy who lures the gang's victims, and who begins to feel the weight of what she does.
- Sir Stanley BelcomThe smiling First Commissioner of Criminal Intelligence, who enjoys good food and thinks the law cannot catch the colonel.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 8 h 17 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 11 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Jack O' Judgment
by Edgar Wallace · 1920
A playing card arrives at the colonel's door, and a masked voice starts tearing his criminal empire apart.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Jack O' Judgment is a crime thriller by Edgar Wallace, set in the London of the years after the First World War. It follows Colonel Dan Boundary, a smooth and ruthless man who has built a fortune by buying businesses for a fraction of their worth from people he holds in his grip.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A dead man and a playing card
The story begins on a snowy, stormy night in Lambeth. A young man known as Snow Gregory is shot dead in the street, and nobody sees it happen. In his pocket the police find a tin of cocaine and the Jack of Clubs. He is buried as an unknown, and a jury returns a verdict of murder by persons unknown.
Three months later a letter marked private reaches the Albemarle Place home of Colonel Dan Boundary. Inside is only a soiled Knave of Clubs with two words written along its edge, Jack o' Judgment. The colonel sees in his mind the haggard, grinning face of the dead man, and drops the card into the wastepaper basket.
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What is Jack O' Judgment about?
It is a crime thriller about Colonel Dan Boundary, a blackmailer who builds a fortune by forcing people to sell property cheaply. A masked figure called Jack o' Judgment hunts the gang while police chief Stafford King tries to catch them lawfully.
Who is Jack o' Judgment?
He is a masked figure in a black silk coat who leaves a Knave of Clubs playing card wherever he acts. He mocks the gang in a shrill voice and seems to know their secrets. His identity is the book's central puzzle.
What does the Jack of Clubs card mean?
The card is found on the body of Snow Gregory, a murdered drug user, and later sent to the colonel by Jack o' Judgment. It marks both the avenger's signature and a link back to that first killing.
The author
Edgar Wallace
1875–1932 · British crime writer
Edgar Wallace was a hugely prolific British writer of thrillers and crime fiction who later co-created the story for King Kong. The Adventures of Heine follows Heine, a German secret agent, through a series of comic misadventures in Britain during the First World War.
More by Edgar Wallace
All 21 booksMore like this
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