Seven Faces

Police detective Angus Campbell, a dour and methodical Scottish American policeman, cordially disliked his partner, the ebullient and overweight Irish cop Patrick O’Rourke. And the feeling was cordially reciprocated by O’Rourke. Both were annoyed—but not really concerned—about orders to guard the frantic millionaire John Cobb on a late-night journey on the New York–Chicago train. After locking Cobb in his compartment, they would look forward to the pleasure of antagonizing each other in the club car. That is, until Cobb turned up missing. Whoever was responsible—and there were several possibilities among the passengers, including an incomparably strong and handsome man, a breathtakingly beautiful woman, and an improbably villainous stranger—had perhaps discounted each detective individually, and perhaps justly so. But what the malefactor could not know was the insight of their superior, Inspector Corrigan: “Separate they’re not much, but, when they’re together, they hate each other so much that they grind one another sharp as razors.”

Seven Faces originally appeared as six installments in Detective Fiction Weekly during October and November 1936. This edition—the first to collect the installments in book form, uncut and as the author intended—introduces today’s readers to a most memorable detective duo.