Gees First Case

About This Book

Published in 1936, Gees' First Case is the debut novel in an eight-book series by Jack Mann, the pen name of E. Charles Vivian (1882–1947). The protagonist is Gregory George Gordon Green — known as Gees — a tall, self-deprecating former policeman who has just quit the force after two years to set up his own private detective agency, much to the dismay of his military father.

In this opening case, Gees becomes entangled with a network of communist revolutionaries after encountering their roving inspector — a striking young woman — on a train. The investigation takes him into a conspiracy of sedition and political violence that he must dismantle before the conspirators can act. Uniquely among the Gees novels, this first adventure is a straightforward thriller without the supernatural elements that would define the rest of the series, in which Gees confronts witchcraft, ancient curses, and occult forces in the English countryside.

E. Charles Vivian was a prolific British writer of adventure fiction, science fiction, and detective stories. The Gees series, published between 1936 and 1940, is remembered as an early example of the occult detective subgenre, blending Golden Age mystery conventions with horror and the fantastic.

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