The Final Count
H. C. McNeile (1888–1937), 1926
A legendary poison that kills by touch, a scientist who may be mad, and Hugh Drummond's amateur gang trying to stop a very modern apocalypse. A tense, uneasy thriller driven by dread and curiosity, with wartime shadows and a scientist's sanity fraying under the strain.
Feels like dread, curiosity and unease. About war, madness and power.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy period thrillers about amateur investigators facing a strange, modern menace. Published in 1926, it carries the dialogue and attitudes of its time, which some readers find dated.
Why read it
A 1926 thriller about a poison that kills by touch and a brilliant mind near madness; it gives you dread, moral unease and stubborn amateur courage.
Pages from the book
When a friend's idea is so strange you start diagnosing him.
I think it was at that moment that I first began to entertain doubts as to Robin’s sanity. Not that people dining near would have noticed anything amiss with him: his voice was low-pitched and quiet. But the whole idea was so utterly far-fetched and fantastic that I couldn’t help wondering if his brilliant brain hadn’t crossed that tiny bridge which separates genius from insanity. I knew the hideous loathing he had always felt for war: was it possible that continual brooding on the idea had unhinged him? The sound old houses make when you are listening for something worse.
It was an eerie sort of noise, such as you may hear sometimes in old houses in the country when the wind is blowing. Creak, shuffle, thud—creak, shuffle, thud, and every now and then a sort of drumming noise such as a man’s heels might make against woodwork. For a while we stood listening, and once it seemed to me that the blind bulged outwards with the pressure of something behind it. The poison that needs no needle, and the expert who doubts it exists.
“Now there is another tiny class of poisons—it is really a subdivision of the second class—of which, frankly, we know very little. Some expert toxicologists are even inclined to dismiss them as legendary. I’m not sure that I myself didn’t belong to their number until this morning. Evidence is in existence—but it is not reliable—of the use of these poisons by the Borgias, and by the Aztecs of Mexico. They were reputed to kill by mere external application, without the necessity of a puncture in the skin. They were supposed to generate some strange shattering force, which killed the victim by shock. Now that is absurd: no poison can kill unless it reacts point-blank on the heart. In other words, a puncture is necessary, and this class supplies its own punctures. H. C. McNeile.McNeile served with the Royal Engineers in the First World War and took the pen name 'Sapper' from the army term for a field engineer.
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Final Count for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy period thrillers about amateur investigators facing a strange, modern menace. Published in 1926, it carries the dialogue and attitudes of its time, which some readers find dated.
- What is The Final Count like?
- A tense, uneasy thriller driven by dread and curiosity, with wartime shadows and a scientist's sanity fraying under the strain. Feels like dread, curiosity and unease. About war, madness and power.
- What should I read after The Final Count?
- If you liked The Final Count, try Catch-22 (Joseph Heller), Dracula's Guest (Bram Stoker) and In a Glass Darkly, v. 1/3 (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu).
A taste of the feed
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