The nine bears by Edgar Wallace

For Silinski master criminal read The Nine Bears,

For The other man scroll down past The nine bears.

The nine bears: 

Boring, very boring. The beginning was not too bad: Silinski, a Polish criminal, met Meyers and Baggin thanks to his sister Catherine, and had the idea for a big criminal organization: Silinski put together nine men and a big communication system, and together these men gained lots and lots of money, playing the market, manipulating it with criminal, sometimes terrorist attacks: the destruction of a recent construction in Egypt was avoided by Scotland Yard Inspector T.B.Smith, it would have caused the failure of the second biggest bank of England. Two men had discovered some of these NHC (neuf hommes Cadice) messages and gained money using them, but now they are murdered in London. Smith knows Silinski is involved, but can't find him, at first, or the nine men.
Once, he comes close to get them all, but he didn't have enough men ready and they got away. They stole a Brazilian warship to hide at sea. They blackmailed the world: amnesty for us all or we'll sink every ship we meet. Many Countries of the world join forces and at the end they are defeated. Well: Silinski was first betrayed by his sister, then all the nine men were killed by each other, until Silinski stabbed the last one, Baggin, and then it was all over. American warships destroyed his ship and he was arrested by Smith. This time Edgar put together too pompous a story, and it got very boring. I didn't like it. Also the characters were not intriguing. Silinski was a bit interesting, but his plan was absurd at the end. Come on, Amnesty or I'll destroy you? No Country could ever replay Okay, We surrender to You! Please! That was stupid.
Smith was very plain, and inspector Elk had a very small role, as he had in another book. Catherine was intriguing too, but her role was not so interesting or important.
Conclusion: boooring.

I also read a book titled The other man: 

(Wikipedia says that he sort of added to his story The Nine Bears, that this is an extended version of it with the villain’s name changed… but I find its spirit changed too, this Poltavo is more… more)

The mastermind here is Count Poltavo, a fascinating man. He thinks of himself as a genius because he’s smart, he has a great mind. He cares about plots, about what his mind can come up with, and about the power he can get with it, much more than he cares about people or life.

He is involved in something illegal, but nothing big. When he takes an interest in young Miss Doris Grayson (age 22) he makes her the promise to look after her father and protect him. The papers have just printed of her father’s ‘suicide’, but she got a note from him. Poltavo promises to find him. Because of this he goes to Spain, learns of some big plot Grayson is involved in, and wants to know more and join the group, adding his own input to better the plan. That’s how he meets the Nine Men of Cadiz, the NHC (because it’s in French, so hommes, don’t know why, given thtey are in Spain). 

Poltavo is not one of them, he’s more like an associate, someone they work with. Of the nine, we only know Grayson and Baggin. And Baggin didn’t want to include him at first, but is forced to when Poltavo learns of their plans after going looking for Grayson. (Doris probably hoped he’d take her father back home immediately, to forget all about Baggin, but Poltavo joined them instead, with ideas of his own).

Assistant-commissioner T.B. Smith is the detective in charge of the investigation. Elk is here but has little to none space.

Cord Van Ingen is the young man (25) who is in love with Doris. To him Poltavo says that he’s 35.

The American ambassador says to Poltavo: “you are, I believe, a poet, a philosopher, a dreamer…not a common, base money-grabber.” He likes Poltavo, and hopes to never find him connected to nefarious plots… “he is a great man— and a dangerous on. He has an unquenchable spirit”.

At the end, once there’s no possible way of escape, Poltavo chooses his own way and poisons himself.

I loved it when he went to Elk’s office and called Smith internally, boldly asking where would he find a certain document “in case I should ever want to burgle Scotland Yard” . To get it, he had to injure Elk, but didn’t kill him. We’re told he killed others, though, so the thing is not above him.

I was really sorry that he was the villain, he was young and really interesting.