The Green Rust

by Edgar Wallace

Book by Wallace, Edgar

Genres: Mystery, Science Fiction, Crime, Short Stories, Audiobook, Classics, Thriller

Paperback

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was a prolific British crime writer, journalist and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and countless articles in newspapers and journals.

Over 160 films have been made of his novels, more than any other author. In the 1920s, one of Wallace's publishers claimed that a quarter of all books read in England were written by him.

He is most famous today as the co-creator of "King Kong", writing the early screenplay and story for the movie, as well as a short story "King Kong" (1933) credited to him and Draycott Dell. He was known for the J. G. Reeder detective stories, The Four Just Men, the Ringer, and for creating the Green Archer character during his lifetime.

Reviews

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

“‘It is the greatest scheme that has ever been known to science. It is the most colossal crime – I suppose they will call it a crime – that has ever been committed.’”

Dr. van Heerden does not live in an old castle, and neither is he an organ player or the owner of a white cat that prefers sitting in his lap when he explains his evil plans, but his scheme is indeed a threat to the world, and Edgar Wallace has definitely created a cardboard villain of the blackest dye here, the evil German, megalomaniac and quite enamoured with his own brilliance – a worthy opponent of James Bond himself. Unable to bear the humiliation that his native country, which is, of course, in league with him, suffered at the hands of the victors of the Great War, he wants to bring the entire world to heel by developing a poison that will ruin wheat crops world-wide and thus make Germany the only power that is able to export wheat at a price she deems fit. MUAHAHA, one might say …

The only thing is, he needs money at the start, and therefore he wants to espouse young Olivia Cresswell, who is ignorant of the fact that she is an heiress to a large fortune into which she will come on the day of her marriage, and half of which will automatically fall to her husband, and this is how it all starts. Trying to bring Olivia into dire straits out of which he can free her as a knight in shining armour, he nevertheless fails due to the machinations of the mysterious Mr. Beale so that eventually he decides to kidnap her and marry her against her will. Of course, Mr. Beale also knows the answer to this challenge, and at the end, the evil doctor being financed by the German government, there is merely the question as to how to prevent van Heerden from giving the clue his agents are waiting for before releasing the deadly germs on the wheat crops.

To borrow a word from the doctor’s own language, The Green Rust, which Wallace wrote in 1919, shortly after the end of the Great War, is a glaring Räuberpistole even by the author’s own standards. The plot is delightfully sensational, although quite rickety in places, and the narrative hastens through various episodes, which sometimes resemble each other, e.g. the double kidnapping of Olivia Cresswell, and unlike in most other Wallace novels that I know, there is a lot of melodrama concerning the relationship between Olivia and Mr. Beale, whereas usually Wallace handles the relationship between the protagonist and his plucky female counterpart with more humour and light-heartedness.

The novel stands in the tradition of pre-war invasion novels like Erskine Childers’s The Riddle in the Sands (1903), which gave vent to anti-German feelings in the wake of the naval race between England and Germany. Other novels of this ilk are, for instance, John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps (published in 1915, but written immediately before the war) or Saki’s 1913 When William Came, and their grandfather might be seen in George Tomkyns Chesney’s The Battle of Dorking from 1871.

The irony in The Green Rust is that van Heerden’s own vain bravado will eventually lead him to making a decisive mistake by which he can be brought down. This is another feature that I enjoyed about Wallace’s description of the ultra-evil German villain, a stock character that I, as a German, particularly enjoy. I mean, just look at all ze German do-gooders zat nowadays bore ze world to deass wiz zeir sermons about Germany setting an example of how to deal wiz ze environment, wiz immigration and wiz pretty much everysing else!

[The Phoenix · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story about a secret British heiress and a German doctors plan to wed her to gain half her wealth to fund his country's secret plans to be in control of the world's food supply. And an American detective who gets himself in a legal bind rescuing her while foiling the enemy's plans.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
This 1919 thriller was suspenseful even though the plot is dated in some technical aspects (such as sending coded messages by pigeon to avoid government surveillance of the telegraph offices). The main portion of this though seemed surprisingly modern - an attempt by a terrorist to create and disseminate a bioweapon which would destroy crops (and perhaps all plant matter). Of course, being 1919, the terrorist is German but change him to an Islamic jihadist and update some of the technical aspects and it could take place today .

I listened to the LibriVox recording by Don W. Jenkins - his narration was good but I find his pacing and intonation not quite what I would like it to be. Still better than the text-to-speech feature on my Kindle though!

[Warren Fournier · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Green Rust" is a Radium-Age scifi thriller about bioterrorism by Edgar Wallace, who these days is better known as one of the creators of "King Kong." This is only the second novel of his I've read, and he has written over 170! Unfortunately, this was not as good as the first title I tried, which was "The Dark Eyes of London."

The formula is pretty much the same in both novels, which contain the following three common elements: 1) a murder investigation reveals a more elaborate scheme by a nutty villain 2) a spunky heiress who serves as one of the heroes of the story 3) an unconventional detective who falls in love with said heiress.

Only this time I did not feel the formula worked so well. I liked the heroine, Oliva Cresswell, a lot, but she is barely in the story. She gets drugged up and held hostage for a good 50% of the novel, only to be reintroduced and kidnapped again! But I did enjoy her wonderful wit. For example, when the bad guy injects her with a drug to make her complacent, she asks calmly how long it would take to work. When the villain responds that she should not think of escape, she quips that she wasn't worried about that, only she hoped the drug worked expeditiously so she wouldn't have to look at him anymore.

Other interesting characters include a cocaine-addict chemist and an effete fallen priest with the unfortunate nickname of "Parson Homo." But that's about where the successful characterization ends. Everyone else is a bumbling fool. Bad guys help the main antagonist for seemingly no good reason, and Scotland Yard helps the protagonist without being told what were the stakes. In fact, for over half the novel, the main investigator, who is an American amateur, orders Scotland Yard around like he's their boss, and when they ask what this is all about, he says, "I'll explain later." And they do what he says. Nonsense.

This whole "I'll explain later" trope is a particular gripe of mine, especially in British, but also American, pop literature and film. I understand the idea was to keep the audience guessing, but it is an artificial way of creating suspense that leads only to annoyance. As an example, there are some MINOR SPOILERS ahead, but you can probably read them without danger because these don't impact the narrative at all. The hero gives the heiress a book and says mysteriously that she should not open it unless she really has to. Dum dum DUMMMM! You know she will have to open it, right? It won't spoil anything to say that the book is really a box containing a gun. Well, why didn't he just tell her, "I'm giving you this gun for protection. Here--hide it in this hollowed out book." Better yet, make sure she knows how to work the thing before you give it to her, or she's liable to leave the safety on when she tries to fire it in an emergency... oh wait... that's what ends up happening. Dumb dumb DUMMMMBBBB!

The pacing was not very tight and felt dragged out a bit in parts despite the overall short length. That being said, it still flows as a fairly effective thriller with some exciting moments. This will feel like comfort food to many readers, and it surely is a pleasant bit of entertainment that won't tax your constitution too much.

So though this is not a great book, it certainly isn't bad, and would be sure to please fans of classic literature, pulp adventures, detective fiction, thrillers, and early science fiction. It earns three stars though it wasn't my cup of tea. Don't know if I'll be reading any more Wallace for a while to see if any other books follow the same formula with more or less success, but if I do, be sure I'll review it here!

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Ian Fleming's 10th James Bond novel, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1963), 007 foils a plot by the Germanic supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld to use biological agents to destroy a goodly part of the world's farm crops. But as it turns out, this was not the first time that an English author had given his readers a story featuring a Prussian madman employing bacterial warfare to cut off part of the globe's food supply! A full 44 years earlier, we find Edgar Wallace, the so-called "King of Thrillers," coming up with a similar dastardly scheme, in his 1919 offering entitled "Green Rust." Wallace's novel was initially released by the British publisher Ward, Lock & Co. and has seen a modest number of other editions since, sometimes under its original title "The Green Rust," and other times as just "Green Rust." In recent years, the book has seen editions from both Pulp Fictions, in 1999, and Wildside Press, in 2008. The edition that I was fortunate enough to lay my hands on is the 1938 hardcover from Triangle Books; an 84-year-old volume (as of this writing) complete with dust jacket, but with browning pages so brittle that they would flake and break, despite my gentleness, as I turned them. (And trust me, this book really is a page-turner!)

As for Edgar Wallace himself, he was a writer who was so very popular in his day that it was once estimated that a full ¼ of all books sold in England were by him! Wallace had been born in Greenwich in 1875 and had written his first novel, "The Four Just Men," when he was 30. By the time of his passing in 1932, at age 56, Wallace had come out with a superhuman 170 novels, over 950 short stories, nonfiction, poetry, 18 stage plays, and numerous film scripts, most notably an early draft for "King Kong," released the year after his death. Dozens and dozens of motion pictures would ultimately be released that were based on his novels; I have already written of the krimi film "The Dead Eyes of London" (1961), based on Wallace's 1924 thriller "The Dark Eyes of London." And although he didn't dabble in sci-fi very often, "Green Rust" (as my Triangle book gives the title) is one of Wallace’s rare forays into the genre, and his use of biological warfare here may just be one of the earliest instances of the subject in fiction. Wallace's novel deftly melds crime, thriller, espionage and sci-fi elements together in one very entertaining package that manages to hold up very well more than a century after it was first conceived.

"Green Rust" features such a twisty little plot that I'm not quite sure how to properly begin describing it. The book opens with the mysterious murder of the wealthy English industrialist John Millinborn, who was already dying of some unspecified heart ailment, while on vacation in western Canada, when we first encounter him. Millinborn was being attended by a medical man he'd recently met during his travels, the urbane German Dr. Van Heerden, while his oldest friend, an English lawyer named James Kitson, had stood helplessly by. After Millinborn is shockingly stabbed on his deathbed, the action jumps over the pond to London, where we encounter Van Heerden again, sometime later, sharing a small apartment building with the lovely office worker Olivia Cresswell, as well as the drunken sot Stanford Beale. A strange series of events soon upends Ms. Cresswell's life completely: She is fired from her job with no reason given. She is accused by her former employer, the following day, of theft, and the London police raid her flat in search of the stolen money. Her apartment is broken into twice and ransacked while she is away. Mr. Beale, of all people, reveals himself to be a responsible business owner and offers her another office job...researching wheat fields all around the world. And then comes the most startling development of all, when her good friend Van Heerden kidnaps her and spirits her away to an abandoned house in the country, where he plans to inject her with the will-destroying drug "bromocine" and compel her to marry him. What in the world can possibly be going on?

Eventually, the reader learns (and these are very slight spoilers at worst; the dust jacket of my Triangle edition gives away even more) that Beale is in actuality some kind of American detective (his true background is only revealed toward the novel's end) who'd been hired by Kitson to safeguard Olivia, who is herself the long-lost niece of John Millinborn, and now heiress to his millions. In a subsequent investigation of Van Heerden, Beale learns that the German has been working on a secret project only referred to as "The Green Rust"; a project for which he is in desperate need of funds. Ultimately, Beale learns a lot more about Van Heerden's schemes, and realizes that nothing less than the stability of the world's economy, the forced starvation of millions of people, and possibly the outbreak of a new world war hang in the balance. During a daring nighttime bit of sleuthing, Beale actually witnesses the Green Rust being manufactured in an abandoned wine factory in Paddington (just north of Hyde Park). But can he possibly act in time before Van Heerden scatters the diabolical substance broadcast around the world, to spread untold havoc?

You will notice that I have been doing my darnedest to be coy here, and not mention anything regarding the properties of the mysterious Green Rust itself. And indeed, the nature of Van Heerden's project is only revealed to the reader in small driblets as Wallace's story progresses. Beale himself remains annoyingly closemouthed on the subject, even with the Scotland Yard officials he enlists in the cause, and the result is a sense of heightened curiosity in the reader, as well as befuddlement. Thus, we can only nod our head in agreement with Olivia when she declares early on "I am afraid I am rather bewildered by all the mystery of it," and when Superintendent McNorton, of Scotland Yard, says, at the book's midpoint, "Beale knows more about the matter than any of us, but he only gives us occasional glimpses of the real situation." Fortunately, the book's labyrinthine plot and Van Heerden's evil machinations are all made clear eventually. Revealing the precise purpose of the Green Rust would surely constitute a major plot spoiler, so you will forgive me if I don't touch on that here.

For the rest of it, Wallace's novel builds slowly and soon engenders in the reader a sense of impending doom and critical emergency. The book often feels like a proto-007 affair, with its nefarious villain, grotesque henchmen, and save-the-world plotting. Wallace here evinces a great gift for well-rendered dialogue and wry touches of throwaway humor, and his story moves along briskly. In that last respect, it can be likened to what has been called "the Fleming sweep." The 007 author used to type up his novels very quickly, only adding the copious bits of detail, for which the Bond novels were known, later on. This rapid manner of writing made the Bond books really seem to move. And Wallace, it would appear, had his own method for making his story lines propel themselves. It seems that Wallace would always laboriously handwrite the first page of his books, and then dictate the rest--into a recorder or to a secretary--to be typed up later. The method seemed to work for Wallace very well, and surely helped him to write those 170 novels, 950 short stories, and so much more, in just a 27-year period. Personally, I found his style to be immensely readable. Take, for example, this small parenthetical bit; one of the most quotable descriptions of a Monday morning that I have ever come across:

"...There is a menace about Monday morning which few have escaped. It is a menace which in one guise or another clouds hundreds of millions of pillows, gives to the golden sunlight which filters through a billion panes the very hues and character of jaundice. It is the menace of factory and workshop, harsh prisons which shut men and women from the green fields and the pleasant byways; the menace of new responsibilities to be faced and new difficulties to be overcome. Into the space of Monday morning drain the dregs of last week's commitments to gather into stagnant pools upon the desks and benches of toiling and scheming humanity. It is the end of the holiday, the foot of the new hill whose crest is Saturday night and whose most pleasant outlook is the Sunday-to-come...."

Whew! Not bad for a man dictating into a recorder, right?

Wallace, besides giving us the realistically drawn madman that is Van Heerden, the spunky and levelheaded Olivia, and the resourceful detective (yet hardly a superspy) Stanford Beale, also provides his readers with any number of interesting secondary characters, such as Bridgers, a chemist in Van Heerden's employ who is seriously addicted to cocaine; Milsom, another chemist working on the Green Rust, who had done time for murdering his own nephew; Hilda Glaum, a Swiss woman who worked next to Olivia and who is madly in love with the cold-fish Van Heerden; and the unfortunately named Parson Homo, a lapsed priest turned burglar who provides Beale with some invaluable assistance. The author also gives us a bit of unsappy and not overly done romance between Olivia and Beale--including what might be the strangest wedding ceremony ever depicted--and at least three thrilling sequences: Olivia's drugged imprisonment and attempted escape, Beale's infiltration of the Green Rust factory, and the final showdown between Van Heerden and our heroes. And to top it all off, we do get to witness one (accidental) demonstration of the Green Rust's capabilities, and it surely does manage to impress!

Actually, I have very few complaints to lodge against my first Edgar Wallace novel. I suppose the book might have benefited from a few more thrilling sequences, and the fact that all that manufactured Green Rust still exists by the time the novel wraps up does not leave us with an entirely comfortable feeling. Yes, Van Heerden's plot has been foiled, but the possibility for future mischief remains very very real...and might have been explored by Wallace in a sequel, had he so chosen. "Green Rust," I might add, is very much a British affair, and a good street map of London might come in handy for all those readers who are not intimately familiar with the area. But that's about all for my nitpicking. I read "Green Rust" over the course of a very nasty and extended NYC heat wave, and found it to be perfect company, indeed. The book, incidentally, was turned into a British film called "The Green Terror" the same year it was released, 1919, and I would love to catch this hard-to-see silent movie one day, if, say, TCM would ever screen it. In the meantime, there are some 170-odd other Wallace novels out there to be experienced. I see that his 1925 collection entitled "The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder" is one of the 100 works discussed in H. R. F. Keating's excellent overview volume "Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books," and that is where this reader would like to be heading next, Wallace-wise....

(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Radium Age and Golden Age sci-fi....)

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

Librivox audio edition
I love Edgar Wallace, his fantastical plots and predictable but passionate heroes.They are great to listen to while I'm at work weaving. I had listened to all of the canon on Librivox and I'm glad to see they have added a few more.
This book has a great "McGuffin" of the green rust that will destroy all the corn crops of the world, throwing economies into chaos, almost like a Dr No or other James Bond villian.
The book is dated with a strong anti-German bias.

[Rupert Matthews · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like Edgar Wallace, I really do. But this book is awful. The main character behaves with such arrant foolishness that it is a miracle that she ever managed to walk out the door in the morning without tripping over. The supposed detective misses the most obvious clues and blunders around like an utter oaf. And the storyline is pretty far fetched anyway.

Don't waste your time.

A real shame as other books by this author that I have read were very good indeed.

[Abbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to a great audio recording from Librivox. The Green Rust kept me entertained while I weeded the garden and harvested vegetables. I enjoyed the adventures very much. I am compelled to listen to more audio books by this very prolific author. Thank you again Librivox and the iPod Shuffle for all you do to enliven my daily activities and chores.

[Patrick Gibson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting take on biological warfare. Takes a while to get going, and the plot is kind of pbvious -- but still a good read...

[Avid · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reminds a bit of another book I just read called, "The Affair Nextdoor" by Anna Katharine Green. Both were written without dumbing down our English language, with an actual involved and unique storyline that hasn't been done previously, and the writing has plenty of action without the need for foul language, blood & guts everywhere, or humiliation of another for whatever is popular in our latest headlines & political arena.

However, whereas I gave the other book mentioned a 5-star 🌟 rating, this book was not as smooth and thought out. I felt some liberties were taken by the author when backed into the corner and unsure about what steps to take next. A pet peeve of mine is when a victim or family member in a novel constantly interferes with a murder investigation the FBI is doing. They'll magically find clues, almost get killed, be warned to stay away but never do, and end up solving the case with some books them even being asked to join the FBI. That is so beyond the realm of reality that even in a book it is frustrating to read. They'd be in jail for obstruction of a murder investigation and tampering with evidence at the bare minimum! This book does the very same thing. An American goes to Europe and takes control of their investigation! He leads their task force and no one even questions him? I don't think so. There are other issues I had as well with the book, the very ending is one, and the "mystery book" the main character gave her for "an emergency only" is just one more example.

Overall, the read is enjoyable once you ignore it is not real life and let yourself just fall in and be absorbed. I do recommend the book. 👍 He was a prolific writer & has 170 books written. At one point 1 in 4 books being read at the time were one of his.
📚

[Old Time Tales · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rust never sleeps!

This was great fun to read. German anger over their loss in the Great War causes a bold attempt at early biological warfare. A mad German scientist plots the destruction of Europe and the US wjile an intrepid American detective and a damsal in distress struggle to thwart his plan.

[Liviu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another middling Edgar Wallace novel - a bit of a thriller with a little sf element set in the aftermath of WW1 which as usual has enough energy that makes one want to see how it ends, but otherwise is a bit of a mess with a strutting villain, a drunk detective and a heiress who stumbles from peril to peril

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as well written as "The Crimson Circle", but better than "The Daffodil Mystery". The plot is pretty far-fetched and rather drawn out. Still, enjoyed listening to Kirsten Wever's reading of this book for Librivox.

[Anastázia Kovácsová · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super krimi kde naozaj čitateľ sa dozvedá všetko na konci

[Inez M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has Everything

International intrigue, the possible end of the world as we know it, romance, danger. It's a fun read. I do recommend it.

[Cedric · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 eigenlijk. Heel tof!

[AkelaRa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Вперше читаю автора, ніколи раніше і не цікавилась біо- та кінографією. Приємна перерва від сучасного стилю -- досі дивуюсь, як різняться епохи за стилем слова.

[Vic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spannende Geschichte mit Kampf um die Weltherrschaft und die Liebe

[Dvdlynch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Garbaugust 2025 - Fits the 'anything goes' weekly prompt (Aug 1-10)

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

—245—

[Anita Horan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book (audio version). Here's my video review of The Green Rust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hnkC...

[Scilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot is a little farfetched as are most of Wallace's books, but it is a good read. It begins with the murder of a very rich man who has just written his will leaving his money to his poor niece who is not supposed to know about the legacy until the day she is married (to prevent treasure seekers). It involves a plot by a German after WWI to kill all the corn in the developed world and force them to buy corn from Germany (who still has its own and all of Russia's corn) at greatly inflated prices, thus getting back all the money the allies had "stolen" from them after the war. As usual in Wallace novels, there is a handsome detective (Mr. Beale) who rescues a beautiful girl (Olivia Cresswell), and they fall in love. The German doctor Van Heerden is the perfect villain.

[Kimbolimbo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe that John Christopher must have read this book before writing his novel, No Blade of Grass. I consider this book to be the prequel to No Blade of Grass. So as you can imagine, I enjoyed reading this thriller even though the dialogue was ridiculous and it was very annoying that every bad person and good guy kept revealing their hand of cards each time they thought they had succeeded only to have the rug pulled out from beneath their feet.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

What looks at first like it is going to a fairly straightforward murder mystery, opens up into story of biological terrorism with a plot to destroy the world's grain harvest, with a dastardly German (it's an Edgar Wallace book, of course the German's dastardly) behind it all. Wallace is better a the set up than seeing the narrative trough, but still it's a nice Edgar Wallace yarn, one of his best.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm! I like this one but not as much as his others. A tale of national terrorism, written some time after WW1, but it seemed too farfetched to me. It was a free Kindle download and I really liked all the others by Wallace that I have read. This one just didn't appeal as much. I can recommend the others without restraint; I don't think I will recommend this one.

[for-much-deliberation ... · Rating 5 out of 5]

This classic adventure was definitely exciting... A doctor's sick scheme must be put to an end before its repercussions and reciprocations cause havoc around the world. But then there's the young detective, a young woman, a fortune, secret laboratories, poison, some gun play, hostages, and the list goes on...

[Julie Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Edgar Wallace who at one time was one of the most popular British mystery writers. This is not one of his best although it was enjoyable enough. I'd give it 2-1/2 stars probably but it was more dated than many of his books, most notably with the strong anti-Hun bias, and that made me round it down.

[Jason Hyde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thrilling stuff, surprisingly witty, vehemently anti-German, which is odd when you consider that Wallace's most lasting popularity has been in Germany.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

a fun but predictable read.

[Sondie · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely loved the mystery element.