Sexton Blake and the Great War

This compendium of three long tales featuring supercompetent spy/detective Sexton Blake, who appeared in more than 4,000 stories written by more than 200 authors between 1893 and 1978, does nothing to justify reintroducing the character to a modern audience. Hodder opens with a metafictional conversation between himself and Blake, in which they discuss how different writers treated Blake, with Hodder observing that the first selection, Norman Goddard’s “The Case of the Naval Manoeuvres,” was not well written. Readers will agree, as Goddard has Blake climb a rope dangling from a German airship hovering over the Shetland Islands several years before WWI, only to find Kaiser Wilhelm among the crew. That shocking discovery precedes action-packed sequences with Blake escaping death multiple times and eventually rescuing the Kaiser, thereby delaying conflict between their two countries. The other entries, one of which sends Blake to the Western front during WWI so he can get a will signed, aren’t more plausible, and Hodder’s editing out racist and anti-Semitic passages and noting where he’s done so won’t redeem this dated material. Risible plots, ungainly prose, and a two-dimensional lead will leave few eager for the next Sexton Blake reissue. (Feb.)