The Miracle Man by Frank L. Packard, Fiction, Literary, Action & Adventure

by Frank L. Packard

John "Doc" Madison, The Flopper, and Pale Face Larry have overstayed their welcome scamming people. The police are on their tail, and they have to find somewhere to hide to evade capture. Doc finds a newspaper article about a faith healer in a small town. He decides that his gang of crooks could hide quite well down there and make a profit to boot! They begin to con the local townsfolk claiming that the funds will go to creating a chapel for the people. And then the most outrageous thing There is a true faith healing and the foolproof plan to earn money has now becoming unraveled from the inside out.

Genres: Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2007

About the author

Frank Lucius Packard was born in Montreal, Quebec and educated at McGill University and the University of Liege. As a young man he worked as a civil engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway. His experiences working on the railroad led to his writing a series of mystery novels, the most famous of which featured a character called Jimmie Dale.

Frank Packard died in 1942 in Lachine, Quebec and was buried in the Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

H.L. Mencken wrote offhandedly in the Smart Set around 1921 that George M. Cohan had made a pretty good Broadway show out of this, which surprised me enough, being familiar with Mencken's modernist tastes, that I read it out of curiosity. Not what anybody born after about 1900 would call a good book, but pleasant -- the premise is ingenious and the plot kept me reading, although I guessed the final twist about two-thirds of the way through. The writing is purplish and deepens to a violent heliotrope in the climax, in which innocence and purity of heart triumph over sin. It wasn't exactly time wasted, but I won't be spending the night on bookfinder.com tracking down the rest of Packard's stuff.

[Luis A Quijano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good!

It really takes you in a trip to the characters' mind. The writer is very smart and goes deep into human nature.