First lines: Mr. Justice Maxell

With over 170 novels, 24 plays and a couple of screenplays (including a first draft of “King Kong”), you can’t say that Edgar Wallace was not a prolific writer. Mr. Justice Maxell (1922) is one of his many crime novels.

If this book is representative for the crime genre, I would say it’s not my thing. And if I wasn’t given this book, I surely would not have picked it up myself. Some Bookcrosser had released this book in a car park, and after the finder took it home and forgot about it for two years, he gave it to me, as it seemed something “I’d enjoy”. Whatever that means.

So, now that I’ve read it, it is my ‘duty’ to release this book again somewhere, so that another person can find it, read it and pass it on again. That’s the whole idea of this Bookcrossing thing. I’ll only have to find an appropriate location. It would be fun to dump that book as far as possible. I could leave it on an international train, I could take it on a holiday and leave it there but I’m afraid no plan will develop until this thing with my knee is resolved, so I could give it someone going abroad for a holiday (Thailand would be an option), or I could just be lazy and leave it somewhere nearby. Suggestions are welcome.

Edgar Wallace — Mr. Justice Maxell
It was two hours after the muezzin had called to evening prayer, and night had canopied Tangiers with a million stars.