Number Seventeen

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By Listen TheBook Posted on Jun 1, 2023

In Category - Crime & Mystery Fiction

Authors: Louis Tracy In Year : 1915

Book Language: English

Audiobook: Number Seventeen

Chapter 1: The Outcome of Artistic Curiosity
Chapter 2: The Compact
Chapter 3: In the Toils
Chapter 4: A Telephonic Talk and Its Consequences
Chapter 5: A Leap in the Dark
Chapter 6: Close Quarters
Chapter 7: Wherein Mr. Forbes Explains Himself
Chapter 8: The First Counter-Stroke
Chapter 9: Sharp Work
Chapter 10: Captures on Both Sides
Chapter 11: The Reappearance of Handyside
Chapter 12: No Surrender
Chapter 13: Some New Moves in the Game
Chapter 14: Wherein Theydon Suffers From Faint Heart
Chapter 15: Forceful Tactics
Chapter 16: Wherein Unexpected Allies Appear
Chapter 17: The Settlement

The number Seventeen refers (at first) to the London apartment of a young widow who is strangled (off-scene) at the beginning of the book. Her neighbor, novelist Frank Theydon, joins with millionaire-philanthropist James Forbes to bring the murderer to justice. In the end, we discover that there is another sinister meaning to the number seventeen.

The international theme is dominant, beginning with a discussion of the possible danger posed by advances in air technology: will such advances bring the weapons of war to the skies – as submarines bring them to the seas? (The book was written before World War I.) This theme dominates the book, whose Asian “bad guys” represent the so-called Yellow Peril (widespread fears that the growing powers of Japan, China and other Asian countries posed great threats to the west).

“The law” is here represented by Scotland Yard’s Chief Superintended Winter and his friend, enemy and side-kick, Inspector Furneaux. Winter is big, burly, friendly, straight-forward and conventional. Furneaux is (of course, representing Winter’s opposite) small, puny, uncannily intuitive, often devious and unconventional.

- Summary by Kirsten Wever