Crooks with names such as The Wolf, The Mole, Hunchback Joe, Slimmy Jack and Birdie Lee. An opium den run by Foo Sen and his Chinese assistants. A very wealthy young man who either just puts on a black silk mask, or a complete disguise as a disreputable, drug-addicted artist, to venture into the underworld of New York’s East Side – to find and help the woman he loves. (A woman, by the way, who isn’t all that helpless, who has a sharp mind of her own, and is even better at hiding in the underworld than he is.)

The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale by Frank L. Packard – new at Librivox

Talk about action-packed… No high standing literature, but good stuff to dive into on my autumn vacation. I finished it in 6 days! As well as finishing up the readings of 2 Dutch works, that I expect to come out in the next few days. I indulged myself. (And no, I did not spend the whole of my vacation in front of my computer).

In the previous book of adventures, we met Jimmie Dale, a wealthy playboy by day, who at night put on a disguise and became The Gray Seal, a daredevil entering businesses or homes and cracking safes, always leaving a diamond shaped, gray paper “seal” behind to mark his conquest. He never took anything, but just wanted the thrill of it. This had spun out of control when a mysterious woman, whom Jimmie Dale nicknames The Tocsin, caught him at it and blackmailed him into doing her bidding. On her instigation, he got involved in numerous underworld crimes, righting wrongs and protecting innocent bystanders. The Tocsin is herself in hiding from her enemies in the underworld, and the two of them barely escape with their lives when they are pursued by both the criminals and the police.

At the end of those previous adventures, Jimmie Dale thought he had left off his dealings with the underworld for good, and could settle down with the woman he loved. But now, The Tocsin has disappeared. Jimmie Dale is drawn back into the world of crime, crooks and opium dens to look for her, and The Gray Seal is resurrected.

Alweer een nieuwe Nederlandstalige solo klaar, in record-tijd (voor mij dan): deel 1 van ‘Klaasje Zevenster’. Het boek doet me een beetje aan denken aan „Great Expectations” van Charles Dickens. Het is nu eigenlijk vergeten, maar toen het verscheen was het een bestseller. Het creeërde ook een flink schandaal (altijd goed voor de verkoopcijfers), maar de reden daarvan is pas in deel 3 te vinden, dat hou ik nog even geheim*. Een paar jaar geleden was er een plan om er een TV serie van te maken als kostuum-drama, en dat kan ik me goed voorstellen; jammer dat dat niet is doorgegaan.
Hoewel het boek lekker weg leest, kan ik niet beloven dat ik elke maand een nieuw deel klaar heb, dus het kan nog wel even duren voor we aan het einde van de hele roman komen, na vijf delen met in totaal meer dan 1500 pagina’s… Dus nog maar niet beginnen met luisteren als je liever gelijk weet hoe het afloopt met Klaasje.

Een groepje Leidse studenten viert een gezellige Sinterklaasavond in de jaren ’20 van de 19e eeuw, als er onverwachts een pakketje aan de deur bezorgd wordt. Tot ieders grote verrassing vinden ze daarin een baby. Zij besluiten zich als groep over het meisje te ontfermen. Deze roman, een bestseller bij de verschijning in 1866, verhaalt over de lotgevallen van de vondeling.
Dit is deel 1 van in totaal 5 delen (de andere delen zijn nog niet beschikbaar op Librivox). Hierin leren we de studenten kennen, en Klaasje Zevenster als jong meisje. Als ze klaar is op haar kostschool komt ze bij één van haar ‚vaders’ logeren, Gerlof Bol, die inmiddels dominee is. Dat heeft verstrekkende gevolgen. (Samenvatting van Anna Simon)

* ‘ns Kijken wie zich kan inhouden, en het niet gelijk gaat googlen.

Just completed another solo on Librivox, in English – after again several months of lack of recording.

“The secret of the silver car” is an adventure story – hero is Anthony Trent.

Before he went to join the Armed Forces in World War I France, Anthony Trent had a successfull secret ‘career’ as a master criminal in the USA, never caught by the police (see ‘Anthony Trent, Master Criminal’). The war has just ended – but now Anthony Trent seriously fears exposure. While in the trenches, an explosion buried him alive, along with an English soldier. Thinking they would never get out alive, Anthony revealed his identity to the other soldier – just before they were rescued and separated. After recovering from his injuries, all Anthony can think about is finding the English soldier – to thank him for saving his life, but also to know whether the man will betray his big secret. His search is full of adventures, including espionage, blackmail and love.

And actually, I recorded the first ‘Anthony Trent’ book last year, and forgot to post it here.

In 1918, Anthony Trent, a well-educated young man in his late twenties, lives an unsatisfactory life in a New York boarding house. He writes successful crime fiction stories, but this doesn’t pay enough for him to do the things he wants. Things change when he starts to put his knowledge of crime to a practical use… It gets him into serious trouble before long.

(The download counter for this work at Archive.org after 8 months is already at over 30,000 – unexpectedly high, not sure why – it’s a fun, light-hearted book, but it was pretty obscure to me).

(The author only died in 1963, but the works were first published in the USA before 1923 – so have lost their copyright in the USA and fall under the ‘Rule of Shorter Term’, so are also ‘public domain’ in countries that accept the ‘Rule of Shorter Term’, such as The Netherlands)

Many thanks to Laura for proof-listening, and to Annise for making the covers!

And it seems that I’m fully back recording now – am doing 2 new English solos at Librivox (a Henry James novel, and a detective novel by R. Austin Freeman), and just planning to start a Dutch solo at Legamus (Ik en mijn speelman, van Aart van der Leeuw). Let’s hope I keep it up…