A very nice one, a mystery book, intriguing. I guessed right this time, but for a long time I was conflicted, I suspected this guy but I also thought it wasn’t possible… but it fit, and I was right. I insist on this because it’s not something that happens too often :-p
I love the opening story/moral. There was a man sentenced to death in France, but the executioner and his helpers (or whatever they’re called) had a party the night before, it was his birthday or something, and this little fact changed a lot for many people, and many people died because he chose to get drunk the night before the execution. The guillotine didn’t work because he set it wrong, and the man was let go. A few years later a mysterious criminal plagues England.
He calls himself the crimson circle, and he’s the boss of a big organization; he finds desperate people and offers them money to do stuff for him. Sometimes it’s big things like murder, but many other times it’s little things, like ‘watch that man and tell me what he does’, or ‘bring some stuff to some place’, and nobody knows anybody else, and nobody knows the boss identity. He’s the only one who knows all the people involved because he chooses them personally.
In this story there are a few characters that we follow to the end, and a few other names that don’t last till the end :p
Inspector Parr is leading the investigations; Detective Derrick Yale is a private investigator, very much admired by everyone for his mysterious powers; Jack Beardmore is the son of a rich man that gets murdered, and is in love with Thalia, or so he says, though why that is we’re not sure.
Thalia Drummond is, indeed, very beautiful. And a thief.
Jack’s father receives a warning, to pay a large sum of money or he’ll die. He doesn’t yield, he isn’t scared, and he gets murdered around his property. Parr and Yale were there to protect him, but failed.
Marl was not a good man, he was a criminal and a blackmailer, and yet when he approached that house he got terrified, and not long after that day he got killed himself.
Thalia got arrested by Parr one day after she stole a valuable little statue from her employer Froyant (or something). She was let go with a warning because it was her first time, but since it was clear she was in need of money, the crimson circle approached her, and she started working for him.
First she got herself a job at a specific bank, passing information on various things. Sending messages to a specific place, where he would get them and read them. The night she went to dinner with Marl was the night he died. The banker first disappeared, ,and after he decided to talk to the police, he was murdered too. Her ex employer got a letter like Beardmore, and he decided to pay, but since he was one of those people that love money above all else, he couldn’t leave it at that, and tried to get his money back, and in doing so he inadvertently found out the crimson circle identity. He was murdered in his house, under Parr and Yale’s guard, using a glove. She had been instructed to bring a glove to that house…
Parr is at risk of losing his job, very very close to it, because both his superiors and the public opinion, guided by the newspapers of course, was against him because he hadn’t stopped him yet. Yale on the other hand was applauded because he had caught the man whose hand killed Beardmore, (and maybe another murderer too, but I don’t remember.
This murderer was killed in his cell.
Thalia is more and more involved, many things lead to her; at first Yale hires her after she loses the job at the bank, to keep an eye on her, but then he starts talking as if she’s too into it, as if she’s the boss herself. This is really at the end, when it seems like he also has doubts on Parr. This is what the writer wants us to believe, but the reader starts thinking of these two men quite early, wondering who between them will be the crimson circle.
Too many things point to someone with inside information, it’s so obvious that the chief of police thinks so too. It’s not difficult to realise that Parr is the real cop, while Yale is fake. The powers, for one. He touches something, and finds the murderer… and he was always present, and there was one occasion in which he was assaulted, and Froyant’s money ‘taken’. Parr and Jack were in another room, he was alone. We soon know that Thalia was hidden in that room, but you either believe that she did it, or you start suspecting him. You can also believe that someone got into his room by the window, somehow, but it’s not really probable or acceptable.
At the end, Parr reveals that Yale is the crimson circle, and shows his neck to everyone. That’s why he was called that way since he was in France, because he had a red circle around his neck, not a tattoo, just red skin. Because of that, there is really no doubt that it’s him, so he’s arrested and will be executed, hanged, since this is England.
Parr reveals that the merit of his success is his dear mum, and it turns out that he has no mother and no wife anymore, but he has a daughter. She always took care of him since she lost her mom, so he took to call her mom.
Thalia wanted to help him, so she got a job neara Beardmore because he had received that threat. She stole because she had to give herself a certain criminal background to attrack the crimson circle’s attention. She did everything he ordered to stay in the group and get as much informations as she could.
Finally Jack Beardmore has his wish, she’s not really a thief, and he will marry her… because of course they will. It’s a bit annoying, but it was 1922 after all. It’s already nice to have a strong, capable girl in this story, a very brave and intelligent girl who should have had a brilliant career, but since she was a woman nobody knew what reward would be right for her. Parr got a promotion, but she was a woman… well, come to think of it I think there were already female agents in female prisons… I think. She could have become a cop, or something, but her only reward was that now that Jack knew the truth, she could marry him.
ITA il cerchio scarlatto Written in 1922
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