A. J. Raffles, gentleman, cricketeer,

and master safecracker, fives in the World

and times of Sherlock Holmes, only on

the other side. He and his faithful Watson,

Bunny Manders, are con men----elegant,

channing, sometimes gallant and tender-

hearted, but con men nevertheless.

Taking up where E. W. Hornung,

author of the Raffles stories at the turn

of the century, left off, Barry Perowne

evokes the familiar world of late Victorian

London: life in the distinguished apart-

ments of The Albany, a fashionable resi-

dence; cricketing house parties; midnight

journeys in hansom cabs through the

foggy streets of the West End. But he

also brings Raffles into encounters, with

the unexpected from suffragettes at

Lord s cricket ground to white slavers on

the Riviera; from the exiled Oscar Wilde

to Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa; and

from the young Winston Churchill to the

great unsung detective, a doctor named

Conan Doyle.

Through it all Raffles remains deb-

onair, resourceful, and curiously moral-

in his fashion. After all he has his beauti-

ful sister Dinah to protect from rogues

like himself and Manders.

In bringing Manders secret papers to

light, Barry Perowne offers us dazzling,

witty adventures--a crook s version of

THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION.