The Third Round

Sapper

ISBN 10: 0460022466 / ISBN 13: 9780460022460

Published by J. M. Dent & Sons, 1984

About this Item

Good condition. A copy that has been read but remains intact. May contain markings such as bookplates, stamps, limited notes and highlighting, or a few light stains.

Seller Inventory # M03H-00714

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Third Round
• Publisher: J. M. Dent & Sons
• Publication Date: 1984
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0460022466
• ISBN 13: 9780460022460
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

The death of Professor Goodman is officially recorded as a tragic accident, but at the inquest, no mention is made of his latest discovery–a miraculous new formula for manufacturing flawless diamonds at negligible cost, which strikes Captain Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond as rather strange. His suspicions are further aroused when he spots a member of the Metropolitan Diamond Syndicate at the inquest. Gradually, he untangles a sinister plot of greed and murder, which climaxes in a dramatic motorboat chase at Cowes and brings him face to face with his archenemy. Herman Cyril McNeile was a British soldier and author, writing under the pseudonym Sapper. Drawing on his experiences in the trenches during the First World War, he started writing short stories and getting them published in the Daily Mail. As serving officers in the British Army were not permitted to publish under their own names, he was given the pen name “Sapper” by Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the Daily Mail; the nickname was based on that of his corps, the Royal Engineers. After the war McNeile left the army and continued writing, although he changed from war stories to thrillers. In 1920 he published Bulldog Drummond, whose eponymous hero became his best-known creation. The character was based on McNeile himself, on his friend Gerard Fairlie and on English gentlemen generally. McNeile wrote ten Bulldog Drummond novels, as well as three plays and a screenplay.

About the Author

Sapper' is the pen name of Herman Cyril McNeile, born in 1888 at the Naval Prison in Bodmin, Cornwall, where his father was Governor. He served in the Royal Engineers (popularly known as ‘sappers’) from 1907-19, being awarded the Military Cross during World War 1. McNeile started writing in France, adopting the pen name because serving officers were not allowed to write under their own names. When his first stories, about life in the trenches, were published in 1915 they were an enormous success. But it was his first thriller, ‘Bulldog Drummond’ (1920) that launched him as one of the most popular novelists of his generation. It had several amazingly successful sequels, including ‘The Black Gang’, ‘The Third Round’ and ‘The Final Count’. Another great success was ‘Jim Maitland’, featuring a footloose English sahib in foreign lands. Sapper published nearly thirty books in total, and a vast public mourned his death in 1937, at the early age of forty-eight. There are several feature films of his work.