The brigand (Edgar Wallace)

„The Brigand” (1927) is a collection of a dozen fast-paced, frothy crime capers set in a Britain still reeling from 1926’s General Strike. An excellent collection of connected short stories all about likeable conman Anthony Newton. Newton returning from the Great War and unable to find employment decides start redistributing wealth in his own way. Deprived of a legal source of income and faced with homelessness and hunger he decides to become a brigand – a sort of modern-day Robin Hood – and trick rich capitalists into parting with their ill-gotten gains. Some of the ruses are clever, some only mildly interesting. This effectively boils down to a series of elaborate cons and heists with crooked and corrupt capitalists as his targets.