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The Riddle of the Mysterious Light: "Isn't that going a little too far—"
Thomas W Hanshew was born in 1857 in Brooklyn, New York.
Little is known of his life. As a 16 year old he began a career as an actor playing minor parts with various companies, but he made little progress.
However, as an author he made rather more progress but perhaps in quantity not quality. Over his lifetime he wrote over 150 novels and numerous short stories. He wrote several of these works with his wife, Mary and also occasionally wrote as Charlotte May Kingsley along with other more exotic pseudonyms such as Dashing Charley, Old Cap Collier, H O Cooke, Old Cap Darrell and R T Emmett.
His most enduring character was the detective Hamilton Cleek. The Victorian era was awash with detectives and their stories filling pages in periodicals and magazines, with their authors in pursuit of the financial gains and the audience popularity of a certain Sherlock Holmes.
Hanshew’s attempt at a rival character was Hamilton Cleek who began his career as a thief, as well as being the King of Maurevania, and was known to all as ‘the man with 40 faces’, due to his skills at disguising himself. He also spoke a wide range of languages and so was able to slip into situations to gather valuable information that lesser detectives could not.
Thomas W Hanshew died on the 3rd March 1914, in London, England.
Little is known of his life. As a 16 year old he began a career as an actor playing minor parts with various companies, but he made little progress.
However, as an author he made rather more progress but perhaps in quantity not quality. Over his lifetime he wrote over 150 novels and numerous short stories. He wrote several of these works with his wife, Mary and also occasionally wrote as Charlotte May Kingsley along with other more exotic pseudonyms such as Dashing Charley, Old Cap Collier, H O Cooke, Old Cap Darrell and R T Emmett.
His most enduring character was the detective Hamilton Cleek. The Victorian era was awash with detectives and their stories filling pages in periodicals and magazines, with their authors in pursuit of the financial gains and the audience popularity of a certain Sherlock Holmes.
Hanshew’s attempt at a rival character was Hamilton Cleek who began his career as a thief, as well as being the King of Maurevania, and was known to all as ‘the man with 40 faces’, due to his skills at disguising himself. He also spoke a wide range of languages and so was able to slip into situations to gather valuable information that lesser detectives could not.
Thomas W Hanshew died on the 3rd March 1914, in London, England.
247 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 15, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 28, 2021
The other reviewer for this book at the time of my writing says that you need to suspend your disbelief, to enjoy it. I say mostly no. You must know Cleek. And be willing to accept that he is one of those people who are constantly in demand by this time.
September 22, 2022
Written by a husband and wife team, Detective Cleek is a man of 100 faces. Fast paced, with several mysteries in my edition. I had to google French Apaches, which was a violent street gang. Nothing to do with native Americans.
September 15, 2015
The Cleek mysteries are very much in the line of the old Nick Carter stories: they require you to suspend a LOT of disbelief. If you can enjoy stories where people can completely change their identity by simply changing their expression, then you will enjoy this. If you can't suspend that much disbelief, then you will probably prefer other books to this!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews