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The Black Eagle Mystery
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133 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1916
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45 people want to read
About the author
Geraldine Bonner
91 books2 followers"Geraldine Bonner (1870-1930) was an American author, born on Staten Island, New York. Her father, John Bonner was a journalist and historical writer. As a child, Geraldine Bonner moved to Colorado where she lived in mining camps. After moving to San Francisco, California, she worked at a newspaper, the Argonaut, in 1887, and subsequently. She wrote the novel Hard Pan (1900) and used the name Hard Pan as a pseudonym.
Bonner wrote short stories which were published in Collier's Weekly, Harper's Weekly, Harper's Monthly, and Lippincott's."
Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldi...)
Bonner wrote short stories which were published in Collier's Weekly, Harper's Weekly, Harper's Monthly, and Lippincott's."
Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldi...)
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 22, 2020
The Black Eagle Mystery is a novel written by Geraldine Bonner ,published in 1916. Geraldine Bonner was an American author, born on Staten Island, New York, the daughter of the late John and Mary Bonner. Her father, John Bonner was a journalist and historical writer. As a child, she was taken West across the country by her parents, at the time she was about 10 years old. For two years they lived in the mining camps in Colorado, where her father was a prospector. It was here that she received her early education at her father's knee in the evenings. After a few years the family moved to San Francisco, California, in 1883 where Mr. Bonner became the editor of the San Francisco Argonaut. Miss Bonner began writing for the newspaper in 1887, and for the next four years she served as a dramatic critic and then the foreign correspondent. She wrote the novel Hard-Pan, her first volume of fiction. The location of this first novel was in the mining camps of her childhood days. Bonner also wrote short stories which were published in Collier's Weekly, Harper's Weekly, Harper's Monthly, and Lippincott's.
At this moment I am glad I read another of her books, that way I just copied all that stuff about the author from my other review. I wonder why her father went to Colorado as a prospector when he already had a career as a journalist and historical writer? Maybe that didn't pay very well. Or he always dreamt of finding gold and getting rich, my sister has been convinced she is someday going to win the Pennsylvania Lottery and live happily ever after for 30 years. It's interesting that I just managed to mention my sister in a book review, she has never read a book in her life that she wasn't forced to when we were in school. And now that you know all kinds of things about my sister that you didn't want to know, I'll move on to the book, The Black Eagle Mystery.
Many people in our valley go every Friday night to the auction & farmer's market a few miles away. I don't, if I ever happen to wander in there it looks like that same stuff that was there when was I was a kid. But many people I know go and they like to sit and watch the auction where everyone who has something they don't want sells it, or tries to. And so when people bid on things and win, if there are any books in the boxes many of them end up here, after all, you have to pass our home to get there in the first place. And that is how The Black Eagle Mystery entered my life.
The book begins with Molly, she will be our narrator and her husband Babbitts. I know the guy has a first name, but I can't remember what it is. It doesn't take long for me to get annoyed with the book, or at least with the book's narrator because she says things like this:
"I'll call him Babbitts to you because that's the name you'll remember him by-that is if you know about the Hesketh Mystery."
No, I don't know Babbitts and no, I don't know the Hesketh Mystery so you didn't have to mention them. Then talking about their apartment we read:
"If you read the Hesketh Mystery you know how I came by that furniture, and if you didn't you'll have to stay in ignorance, for I'm too anxious to get on to stop and tell you."
Thanks Molly. Now not only do I not know what the Hesketh Mystery is, or what your husband's name is, I also don't know where you got your furniture, and I'm not sure why you mentioned it in the first place. So please stop mentioning it and get on with this mystery. But I'm not to have that happen, for now we meet a friend of hers, Iola Barry, she is her friend from the "Hesketh" days, of course. Then we get all the way to page 15 when we are told:
"If you don't know the story of the Hesketh Mystery you don't know who Wilbur Whitney is"
Well that's true anyway. And on the next page Jack Reddy enters the book. We get one Hesketh mention after another with him in the story. So on page 16 I gave up, went on the internet and located "The Hesketh Mystery" to read first. I find it odd that it wasn't just named that, but it isn't, it's The Girl at Central. And I read it, now I know who all the people are, although I still can't quite remember where the furniture came from.
And now on to the next thing that almost drove me to start blacking out the word "himself" every time I saw it. For as Molly tells us getting back to introducing her husband to us:
I generally call him "Soapy", the name the reporters gave him, and "Himself", which comes natural to me, my mother being Irish." I obviously am not Irish. Here you go:
It was a clear, crisp morning in January-sixteenth of the month-and we were at breakfast. Himself had just got in from Cleveland where he'd been sent to write up the Cheney graft prosecution.
At night, when Himself and I'd meet up, I'd hear from him how O'Mally was getting on in his tunnel."
I'm tempted to say to my husband when he comes home some day, "Hi Himself, how was work today?" I've managed not to do it so far. Ok, the plot of the book is coming:
We begin with Molly and Babbitts having breakfast when Babbitts sees that Hollings Harland has committed suicide. He threw himself out of his office window on the 18th floor the day before. Harland was a big corporation lawyer, something that sounds awful, but I suppose someone has to do it. Babbitts tells Molly that Harland had got caught up in the "Copper Pool", according to the paper. As for what the Copper Pool is, I'm not sure I understand it even after the explanation:
"A badly named weapon to jack up prices and gouge the public, young woman. Just like a corner in hats. Suppose you could buy up all the spring hats, you could pretty near name your own figure on them, couldn't you?"
"They do that now without a corner," I said sadly.
"Well, they can't in copper. The Pool means that a bunch of financiers have put up millions to corner the copper market and skyrocket the price."
"Oh, he lost all his money in it and got desperate and jumped out."
This is where Iola Barry works, and it is the first reason the Babbitt's get involved in this, as much as you can get involved in a suicide. Another important person in the book, and in the copper pool is Johnston Barker, not only was he a success, involved in finance, millionaire, magnate, all kinds of things like that, not only that, but he wasn't even in the Hesketh Mystery! It appears from interviews with the workers in the office that Johnston Barker had called on Harland the afternoon of the suicide. The two employees could hear the men getting angry and talking loudly although they couldn't make out what was said. After awhile Harland comes out of his office, tells them he will be back in a few minutes and leaves the office. They waited for him to return, but he never does, mostly because he is now laying on the sidewalk "crushed to a shapeless mass". Why he told them to wait in the first place I don't know. Well, I do now, but I'll probably forget before long. I suppose all would have gone on with Harland eventually forgotten, only Johnston Barker seems to have disappeared. He is no longer in the office, he isn't at home, or his club, or any where else, no one knows where he is. Then there is Mrs. Whitehall and her daughter Carol. They become important eventually. They have a lot of money, but it's all gone rather quickly in that Copper Pool that has now "gone smash". Now that they can't find Barker and the Pool has smashed, and he was heard arguing with Harland, we are all coming to believe that he, and the twenty million copper dollars are gone forever. And poor Harland, it is now thought that he suspected Barker was about to take the money and leave, so Barker "helped" Harland commit suicide. And then there's Jack, you remember him from the Hesketh Mystery. :-) Jack works as an assistant to Mr. Wilbur Whitney, one of the biggest lawyers in New York. The woman Jack loved was killed, but you already know this from reading................
And now we have to figure out, why Harland committed suicide, if Harland committed suicide, who pushed Harland if he was murdered, why they would do it if they did it, what happened to Mr. Barker, he could be dead for all I knew when reading the book, what a Copper Pool is, why there is such a high demand for copper, and if Molly ever stops calling her husband himself. Go ahead and read it, the ending did surprise me, although not as much as The Girl at Central ending did. It is entertaining, I'm not sure how entertained I'd be if the book had been any longer, but it's a nice short book. I won't read it again though. Happy reading.
At this moment I am glad I read another of her books, that way I just copied all that stuff about the author from my other review. I wonder why her father went to Colorado as a prospector when he already had a career as a journalist and historical writer? Maybe that didn't pay very well. Or he always dreamt of finding gold and getting rich, my sister has been convinced she is someday going to win the Pennsylvania Lottery and live happily ever after for 30 years. It's interesting that I just managed to mention my sister in a book review, she has never read a book in her life that she wasn't forced to when we were in school. And now that you know all kinds of things about my sister that you didn't want to know, I'll move on to the book, The Black Eagle Mystery.
Many people in our valley go every Friday night to the auction & farmer's market a few miles away. I don't, if I ever happen to wander in there it looks like that same stuff that was there when was I was a kid. But many people I know go and they like to sit and watch the auction where everyone who has something they don't want sells it, or tries to. And so when people bid on things and win, if there are any books in the boxes many of them end up here, after all, you have to pass our home to get there in the first place. And that is how The Black Eagle Mystery entered my life.
The book begins with Molly, she will be our narrator and her husband Babbitts. I know the guy has a first name, but I can't remember what it is. It doesn't take long for me to get annoyed with the book, or at least with the book's narrator because she says things like this:
"I'll call him Babbitts to you because that's the name you'll remember him by-that is if you know about the Hesketh Mystery."
No, I don't know Babbitts and no, I don't know the Hesketh Mystery so you didn't have to mention them. Then talking about their apartment we read:
"If you read the Hesketh Mystery you know how I came by that furniture, and if you didn't you'll have to stay in ignorance, for I'm too anxious to get on to stop and tell you."
Thanks Molly. Now not only do I not know what the Hesketh Mystery is, or what your husband's name is, I also don't know where you got your furniture, and I'm not sure why you mentioned it in the first place. So please stop mentioning it and get on with this mystery. But I'm not to have that happen, for now we meet a friend of hers, Iola Barry, she is her friend from the "Hesketh" days, of course. Then we get all the way to page 15 when we are told:
"If you don't know the story of the Hesketh Mystery you don't know who Wilbur Whitney is"
Well that's true anyway. And on the next page Jack Reddy enters the book. We get one Hesketh mention after another with him in the story. So on page 16 I gave up, went on the internet and located "The Hesketh Mystery" to read first. I find it odd that it wasn't just named that, but it isn't, it's The Girl at Central. And I read it, now I know who all the people are, although I still can't quite remember where the furniture came from.
And now on to the next thing that almost drove me to start blacking out the word "himself" every time I saw it. For as Molly tells us getting back to introducing her husband to us:
I generally call him "Soapy", the name the reporters gave him, and "Himself", which comes natural to me, my mother being Irish." I obviously am not Irish. Here you go:
It was a clear, crisp morning in January-sixteenth of the month-and we were at breakfast. Himself had just got in from Cleveland where he'd been sent to write up the Cheney graft prosecution.
At night, when Himself and I'd meet up, I'd hear from him how O'Mally was getting on in his tunnel."
I'm tempted to say to my husband when he comes home some day, "Hi Himself, how was work today?" I've managed not to do it so far. Ok, the plot of the book is coming:
We begin with Molly and Babbitts having breakfast when Babbitts sees that Hollings Harland has committed suicide. He threw himself out of his office window on the 18th floor the day before. Harland was a big corporation lawyer, something that sounds awful, but I suppose someone has to do it. Babbitts tells Molly that Harland had got caught up in the "Copper Pool", according to the paper. As for what the Copper Pool is, I'm not sure I understand it even after the explanation:
"A badly named weapon to jack up prices and gouge the public, young woman. Just like a corner in hats. Suppose you could buy up all the spring hats, you could pretty near name your own figure on them, couldn't you?"
"They do that now without a corner," I said sadly.
"Well, they can't in copper. The Pool means that a bunch of financiers have put up millions to corner the copper market and skyrocket the price."
"Oh, he lost all his money in it and got desperate and jumped out."
This is where Iola Barry works, and it is the first reason the Babbitt's get involved in this, as much as you can get involved in a suicide. Another important person in the book, and in the copper pool is Johnston Barker, not only was he a success, involved in finance, millionaire, magnate, all kinds of things like that, not only that, but he wasn't even in the Hesketh Mystery! It appears from interviews with the workers in the office that Johnston Barker had called on Harland the afternoon of the suicide. The two employees could hear the men getting angry and talking loudly although they couldn't make out what was said. After awhile Harland comes out of his office, tells them he will be back in a few minutes and leaves the office. They waited for him to return, but he never does, mostly because he is now laying on the sidewalk "crushed to a shapeless mass". Why he told them to wait in the first place I don't know. Well, I do now, but I'll probably forget before long. I suppose all would have gone on with Harland eventually forgotten, only Johnston Barker seems to have disappeared. He is no longer in the office, he isn't at home, or his club, or any where else, no one knows where he is. Then there is Mrs. Whitehall and her daughter Carol. They become important eventually. They have a lot of money, but it's all gone rather quickly in that Copper Pool that has now "gone smash". Now that they can't find Barker and the Pool has smashed, and he was heard arguing with Harland, we are all coming to believe that he, and the twenty million copper dollars are gone forever. And poor Harland, it is now thought that he suspected Barker was about to take the money and leave, so Barker "helped" Harland commit suicide. And then there's Jack, you remember him from the Hesketh Mystery. :-) Jack works as an assistant to Mr. Wilbur Whitney, one of the biggest lawyers in New York. The woman Jack loved was killed, but you already know this from reading................
And now we have to figure out, why Harland committed suicide, if Harland committed suicide, who pushed Harland if he was murdered, why they would do it if they did it, what happened to Mr. Barker, he could be dead for all I knew when reading the book, what a Copper Pool is, why there is such a high demand for copper, and if Molly ever stops calling her husband himself. Go ahead and read it, the ending did surprise me, although not as much as The Girl at Central ending did. It is entertaining, I'm not sure how entertained I'd be if the book had been any longer, but it's a nice short book. I won't read it again though. Happy reading.
August 30, 2018
When Hollings Harland, a hot shot corporate lawyer from New York, plummets eighteen stories from a hall window of the Black Eagle Building onto Broadway below, suicide is the verdict.
Part of an illegal cartel about to be exposed for trying to corner the copper market, Harland had just left an angry meeting with plutocrat Johnston Barker, also rumoured to be involved in the Copper Pool.
Starting her own informal investigation by virtue of a friend who works on the seventeenth floor of the same building, sparky ex-switchboard girl turned part-time sleuth Molly Morgenthau Babbitts suspects murder, aided by her friend criminal lawyer Jack Reddy, his boss Mr. Whitney and her own husband, who is a reporter.
Mr. Whitney calls it "one of the most ingenious plots," though it's hardly that. Still, the two friends tell what turns out to be an increasingly surprising story in alternating chapters, both narrators with a very different voice and view about the truth of the case.
Molly is all "Bully" and "Gee Whiz!" hyperactivity, whereas Jack's story is unexpectedly fraught as his own feelings intrude. Failing to accept the guilt of one of the suspects, he has to wrestle his conscience in order to perform his job of ensnaring them.
It's hardly a Dostoyevskian struggle, this is just a light piece of modestly entertaining fluff, but it was still an unlikely juxtaposition of narrative tones to find in such a novel, turning a straight mystery story into something different, into a prototype for the kind of pot-boiling crime romance that Hollywood has often eroticized and thrived on over the years.
The plot ingredients were all there, just add the sex.
Part of an illegal cartel about to be exposed for trying to corner the copper market, Harland had just left an angry meeting with plutocrat Johnston Barker, also rumoured to be involved in the Copper Pool.
Starting her own informal investigation by virtue of a friend who works on the seventeenth floor of the same building, sparky ex-switchboard girl turned part-time sleuth Molly Morgenthau Babbitts suspects murder, aided by her friend criminal lawyer Jack Reddy, his boss Mr. Whitney and her own husband, who is a reporter.
Mr. Whitney calls it "one of the most ingenious plots," though it's hardly that. Still, the two friends tell what turns out to be an increasingly surprising story in alternating chapters, both narrators with a very different voice and view about the truth of the case.
Molly is all "Bully" and "Gee Whiz!" hyperactivity, whereas Jack's story is unexpectedly fraught as his own feelings intrude. Failing to accept the guilt of one of the suspects, he has to wrestle his conscience in order to perform his job of ensnaring them.
It's hardly a Dostoyevskian struggle, this is just a light piece of modestly entertaining fluff, but it was still an unlikely juxtaposition of narrative tones to find in such a novel, turning a straight mystery story into something different, into a prototype for the kind of pot-boiling crime romance that Hollywood has often eroticized and thrived on over the years.
The plot ingredients were all there, just add the sex.
July 7, 2019
This was just as peppy and twisty as the other two Bonner mysteries featuring the same characters (though The Girl at Central remains my favorite).
(After reading all three, though, you do start to notice that Bonner has a favorite plot device: making out a seemingly cast-iron case against a noble, innocent-seeming character, but somebody who's desperately in love with the suspect just can't believe they're guilty and keeps on insisting it despite all the evidence to the contrary! Come to think of it, that's a favorite plot device of most pre-1920s mystery authors in general...)
(After reading all three, though, you do start to notice that Bonner has a favorite plot device: making out a seemingly cast-iron case against a noble, innocent-seeming character, but somebody who's desperately in love with the suspect just can't believe they're guilty and keeps on insisting it despite all the evidence to the contrary! Come to think of it, that's a favorite plot device of most pre-1920s mystery authors in general...)
June 2, 2018
Oldie but Goodie
I left this old novel on my Kindle unread for quite a while before picking it tonight. I couldn't put it down and read until I finished it at one AM. It is the most convoluted mystery I have read in years. I guessed one factor, but the denouement took me completely by surprise. All I can say is, read it yourself.
I left this old novel on my Kindle unread for quite a while before picking it tonight. I couldn't put it down and read until I finished it at one AM. It is the most convoluted mystery I have read in years. I guessed one factor, but the denouement took me completely by surprise. All I can say is, read it yourself.
February 25, 2023
twas ear reading
got about 40% through and thought life is too short to keep going through this thick treacle of a story.
lots of characters, lots of intrigue, lots of conversations, i couldn't keep up with all the nuisances.
got about 40% through and thought life is too short to keep going through this thick treacle of a story.
lots of characters, lots of intrigue, lots of conversations, i couldn't keep up with all the nuisances.
January 17, 2018
Excellent book with Christian values
Refreshing and well written
Good plot and story line keeps you on edge till the last page
I recommend this book
Refreshing and well written
Good plot and story line keeps you on edge till the last page
I recommend this book
April 14, 2020
A great mystery/ unraveling in bits & pieces-each chapter
Told by the characters - each hunting for the killer
Told by the characters - each hunting for the killer
May 19, 2020
Didn’t like this one as much as the other I read by this author with the same sleuths
December 23, 2020
3.5 stars for a fun early-1900s mystery. Excellently read by Mike Overby in the LibriVox audiobook edition.
July 1, 2025
Starts with a suicidal leap from a NY office tower. A plot to embezzle a copper trust and a young woman’s real estate business.
October 3, 2011
Definitely a fun read. Quite a few red herrings, nicely plotted and a surprise at the end.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews