Readers of The Emerald of Catherine the Great will not have to be told
that Mr. Belloc's mystery stories are written with suavity and
originality and an eye for piquant situations. This new mystery tale is
the story of Rackham Catchings, a manor house in Sussex belonging to an
amiable but improvident squire, which in payment of a debt has come into
the possession of his brother. How the squire's son, John, is forced to
earn his living as a ventriloquist in the music halls, how ventriloquism
plus a headless ghost sends the household into a frenzy of excitement
and fear, and how John succeeds in recovering his home and winning the
girl he loves make a constantly unexpected and unusual story.
Hilaire Belloc (1870- 1953) was born in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France,
and raised in England. Educated in Birmingham before voluntarily serving
his military term of service in France, Belloc then returned to England
to study History at Baliol College, Oxford where he graduated with a
First class degree. Writing on everything from poetry to war and travel
in between, Belloc has been called one of the Big Four of Edwardian
Letters, along with H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and G. K.
Chesterton, all of whom debated each other into the 1930s. Belloc was
closely associated with Chesterton, and Shaw coined the term
Chesterbelloc for their partnership. A deeply religious Catholic, Belloc
wrote considerably about his faith, and throughout his literary career
he was concerned with the problems of social reform. He was a political
activist and an MP for Salford from 1906 to 1910 for the Liberal party,
and his written non-fiction work criticized both capitalism and aspects
of socialism.
