Lives in Cricket No 26 - HV Hesketh-Prichard

109 Before the War 1913 also saw the publication of November Joe, Detective of the Woods in book form. In this case the serialisation followed later, and through 1914 and 1915 the stories are turning up everywhere – the Fort Wayne News, the Humboldt Republican, the Sheboygan Press . This was the only work of fiction published under Hex’s name alone, and in some ways the most lasting, as it has been reprinted more than once. John Buchan said: These chapters are first-class detective work, ingenious and dramatic; but their chief charm is the weight of solid expert knowledge behind them. Too many detective novels are concerned with stuffy hotels and the coulisses of city life, and their atmosphere is apt to pall. But here we have the strong wind of romance and an imaginative power working upon real experience. To me they carry a conviction which is absent in other books of their type. In November Joe, too, he has drawn, with compelling truth, a wonderful three-dimensional character. Buchan, like Hex, was decidedly an outdoor man. Ellery Queen includes November Joe in a list, last published in 1986, of the 125 most important works of detective fiction, and it was last reprinted, before online days, in 1985.