Jimmie Dale and Blue Envelope Murder

Frank L. Packard

A Canadian novelist Frank Lucius Packard (1877-1942) wrote about 30 thrillers including ones with the character Jimmie Dale, aka Gray Seal and Smarlinghue, a safecracking Robin Hood who uses his criminal talents to right wrongs, save lives and reputations, and expose wrongdoers to the light of day. Jimmie Dale and Blue Envelope Murder is 4 and the last book in the Gray Seal series. In it, Jimmie Dale tries to protect his friend who received a threat in the form of a mysterious blue envelope, but when the friend is found dead, Jimmie is accused of the murder. To clear himself, Jimmie must resolve the envelopes mystery and find out who stands behind the murder, and he must do it while avoiding the police and his old enemies from the underworld.

Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue

Frank L. Packard

The third book Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue in the Gray Seal series is quite fantastic! Jimmie Dale, alias The Gray Seal, alias Smarlinghue, the gentleman adventurer, is back on the scent with the King of crim and quarry. Over the head of the woman he loves hangs a menace from the gang, she and Jimmie have often thwarted, and through the previous volume saw the leader disposed of, and they free to marry and live their own lives. But Marie knows that there is still one, The Phantom, who menaces her. She again disappears to work out her own salvation... Jimmie too resumes his underworld work. A fast-paced, adventurous story riddled with aliases, disguises, gunfire and opium dens.

The Adventures of Jimmie Dale

Frank L. Packard

Wealthy millionaire by day, at night Jimmie Dale put on a costume and becomes The Grey Seal, daredevil safe cracker and footpad he never takes a thing, but leaves behind his mark, a grey seal of paper to mark his conquest. He was just doing it for the sheer deviltry of it at first, but when a woman catches him she blackmails him to war on certain crime organizations. Frank Packards Gray Seal character first appeared in print in 1914. In some ways he was inspired by earlier Edwardian adventurers like A.J Raffles, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Arsene Lupin, but Packard blended those borrowed elements into an entirely new concept. Dales adventures first appeared in Peoples Magazine and then were collected into several novels.

The Four Stragglers

Frank L. Packard

Written in 1923, this thrilling novel by the thrilling author of the Adventures of Jimmy Dale, teems with intrigue and unforgettable characters. The Four Stragglers is a war story with rockets flaring in the heavens, guns crashing, four men on the battlefield and they meet again afterwards amid mysteries and still greater thrills. In the beginning we meet four allied soldiers, who found themselves lost behind the enemy lines. When story moves on, three of them are running high-class international burglary organization running scams in England and France. They stumble upon the great opportunity to make a big score in one action, and it leads to a complex and thrilling journey to the USA.

The Red Ledger

Frank L. Packard

Ewen Stranway answers an advertisement to meet an old gentleman Henri Raoul Charlebois who has told him that he is in debt. At his flat, he removes from his safe a large book bound in red morocco in which it lists his debts. When he was very poor, Stranways father had given him a dime. Now, fabulously wealthy, he desires to pay back all those who helped him as well as those who did not and he recruits Stranway to continue when he is too old to handle it himself. All those who done him well, will be protected and secured, but those who done him wrong will live to regret it... Frank Packard (1877-1942) authored many popular novels, several of which were made into movies, including a series in which he originated the idea of a heroic crime fighter with a secret double identity.