Roy Vickers was the author of at least sixty-seven novels published in hardcover or in serial form, and at least eighty-four short stories which have appeared in various magazines and in collections and anthologies. Almost all of his novels and short stories concern crime in some way, and their very number makes Vickers stand out as a writer to whom some attention must be given by those interested in the literature of crime. Taken together, his novels are not of high quality by the standards of today. Most of them were written for the mass market of the 1920s and the 1930s, and while the reader of those times may well have found them entertaining, the reader of today would find many of them dated. The situation is quite the reverse with respect to Vickers's short stories. Although some of the earlier ones are as dated in style...