I invested in a complete set of Bulldog Drummond books for Kindle. So I’ll review the second book, though there’s little to say about its virtues or failings beyond what I said in my review of the first book, Bulldog Drummond.

The Black Gang is the title of this outing, and the fact that the title refers to the hero and his friends rather than the villains indicates the ambivalent character of the book for the modern reader.

At the very beginning, the Black Gang capture a criminal villain and take him into their own custody, to be sent to a secret prison of their own. The police are aware of their activities, but not too concerned, as the “right sort of people” are disappearing.

The modern reader has a hard time with this sort of thing – though heaven knows we may be quickly moving into a state of nature where every man will again have to do what seems best in his own eyes.

Anyway, Bulldog Drummond, our intrepid hero, sets his sights on closing down the operation of the greatest criminal mastermind in the world (a Communist, which pleased me), and there are attacks back and forth, and kidnappings, and Drummond triumphs in the end.

Nothing very challenging. Nothing very plausible. There are some ethnic slurs (especially of Jews), but we’ve come to expect that sort of thing, haven’t we?

Mindless entertainment from a more innocent era. Cautions for racist elements.