Perhaps Edgar Wallace's best-known book, originally published under the title
The Gaunt Stranger in 1925.
The Ringer, considered by many Wallace fans to be the best of his thrillers, tells of a killer known by this name, whose exploits had terrified London - such a master of disguise that the police had never been able to circulate a description of him. Mixed up with the Ringer was a tricky lawyer of Deptford, Maurice Meister. Now young Detective-Inspector Alan Wembury is taking over the Deptford police division, and is hoping to marry Mary Lenley, who has recently become Meister's secretary. News comes that The Ringer, who had been traced to Australia and was reported dead, is back in London. Meister will be his next victim, for he left his sister in Meister's charge and her body was found in the Thames. Soon a gaunt stranger is shadowing the frightened lawyer, who seeks police protection. Wembury is involved in an affair of extreme difficulty, complicated by the fact that Mary's brother, ruined by association with criminals, is jailed for robbery - and Meister knows more of this than he will admit. Moreover, the unpopular, bearded Inspector Bliss, just returned from America, is working along his own lines to solve the problem. Who is The Ringer? It will be a clever reader who can spot him before the very end of the story.
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