ARTHUR B. REEVE – The Ear in the Wall. Hearst’s International, hardcover, 1916. Wildside Press, softcover, 2014.

   A successful but now nearly forgotten mystery writer is Arthur B. Reeve, whose Craig Kennedy, “the American Sherlock Holmes,” was once enormously popular in magazines, books, and movie adaptations. A recent reading of The Ear in the Wall shows how dated Reeve is, though nostalgia is still a reason to read him. (I am not recommending a steady diet, however.)

   Many of his attitudes, too, bespeak the bigotry of their time and would be unacceptable today. Likewise the use of “white slavery” as an important plot device. Among the criminals are those with wonderful, if archaic, names like “Dopey Jack” Rubano and “Ike the Dropper.” Then there are such gems of dialogue as You libertine!”

   Kennedy’s popularity was based on Reeve’s use of scientific inventions, some real and some imaginary, albeit plausible. Here, there are bugging devices like the “detectaphone,” as well as machines for identification, such as the vocaphone to provide “fingerprints of the human voice.” There are tools to identify typewriting, special cameras, and new blood tests, all part of “the warfare of science against crime which he [Kennedy] had been waging.”

   If Holmes had Irene Adler, Reeve has provided Kennedy with his version of THE Woman, though also without romance. On this case, Craig Kennedy works with a female detective, Clare Kendall. Reeve refers to her as the “new woman,” while calling Kennedy “the new man.” Also, notice the similarity of their names. When Clare goes willingly into danger, Kennedy calls her “one of the gamest girls I ever knew.” Kennedy then reassures his Watson, Walter Jameson, “Don’t worry, my boy. She’s not of the marrying kind, any more than I am.”