The Four Just Men Books

When the Foreign Secretary Sir Philip Ramon receives a threatening, greenish-grey letter signed FOUR JUST MEN, he remains determined to see his Aliens Extradition Bill made law. A device in the members' smokeroom and a sudden magnesium flash that could easily have been nitro-glycerine leave Scotland Yard baffled. Even Fleet Street cannot identify the illusive Manfred, Gonsalez, Pioccart and Thery - FOUR JUST MEN dedicated to punishing by death those whom conventional justice can not touch.

There are crimes for which no punishment is adequate, offences that the written law cannot efface. Herein lies the justification for The Council of Justice - a meeting of great and passionless intellects. These men are indifferent to world opinion. They relentlessly wage their wits and cunning against powerful underworld organisations, against past masters of villainy and against minds equally astute. To breakers of the unwritten laws they deal death.

There are crimes for which no punishment is adequate, offences that the written law cannot redress. The three friends, Pioccart, Manfred and Gonsalez, may be enjoying the exotic, Spanish city of Cordova with its heat and Moorish influences, but they are still committed to employing their intellect and cunning to dispense justice. They use their own methods and carry out their own verdicts. They are ruthless and they deal in death.

'Grace,' he said, 'I am going to apply the methods of the Four to this devil Stedland.' But the judge finds Jeffrey Storr guilty, not Stedland. As Storr's wife Grace leaves the court a foreign-looking gentleman introduces himself. He and his companion are friends of her husband. Justice has failed and THE FOUR JUST MEN have stepped in. They will use their own laws to protect the innocent and will impose their own verdicts. There can be no appeal.

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was an English writer. Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at 12. He joined the army at 21 and was a war correspondent during the Second Boer War for Reuters and the Daily Mail. Struggling with debt, he left South Africa, returned to London and began writing thrillers to raise income, publishing books including The Four Just Men (1905). Drawing on time as a reporter in the Congo, covering the Belgian atrocities, Wallace serialised short stories in magazines, later publishing collections such as Sanders of the River (1911). He signed with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921 and became an internationally recognised author. After a disastrous bid to stand as Liberal MP for Blackpool in the 1931 general election, Wallace moved to Hollywood, where he worked as a script writer for RKO studios. He died suddenly from undiagnosed diabetes, during the initial drafting of King Kong (1933). THE LAW OF THE THREE JUST MEN. The four Just Men of the original novel are George Manfred, Leon Gonsalez, and Raymond Poiccart, who recruit a fourth, Thery, in their campaign to punish wrong-doers who are beyond the reach of the law. In later books, Wallace develops their backstory. The original fourth man, Merel, had died in Bordeaux, and the remaining three either recruit a fourth ad hoc or operates as a team of three. After The Great War, they are pardoned on condition that they remain within the law, and Poiccart retires to Spain. Gonsalez and Manfred continue to operate a legitimate detective agency.