Jimgrim and the Lost Trooper

Jimgrim/Ramsden/Ommony #6

by Talbot Mundy

First published in Adventure magazine, May 30, 1922
First book edition published by Hutchinson & Co., London, 1931

158 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 1922

About the author

Talbot Mundy (born William Lancaster Gribbon) was an English-born American writer of adventure fiction. Based for most of his life in the United States, he also wrote under the pseudonym of Walter Galt. Best known as the author of King of the Khyber Rifles and the Jimgrim series, much of his work was published in pulp magazines.

Reviews

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

This entry in the Jimgrim series is a bit of a reset after the previous two novels--not forgetting that all of these novels, published by Hutchinson in the early 1930s, were book editions of the stories that appeared in Adventure magazine during the early 1920s. It's not that it's plodding, but it does emphasize Jimgrim's application of strategy and tactics for desert warfare more fully than any book in the series so far. It also introduces a new character, Jeremy Ross, an Australian enlisted man who joins up with Jimgrim and Ramsden on an adventure to protect a gold mine deep in the Trans-Jordan. And lest anyone thinks Mundy might be inclined to stereotype Arabs unfairly, wait until you see what Mundy does with Jeremy and Australians.

Otherwise, in this book and the one to follow, The King in Check aka Affair in Araby, Mundy is at his most explicit in identifying himself and Jimgrim with the Arab cause. Their sympathies are clear. And the arguments in the book, the history, the commentary, and the recent events of World War I, all reinforce that point of view.

This is another good adventure story, but, again, it is setting up the next installment in the series rather than offering an end in itself.