Agent Nine, G-Man Action

Agent Nine #1: “Agent Nine Solves His First Case” by Graham M. Dean. In this first story of the series, Bob Houston and Tully Ross work as clerks in the archive division of the War Department. Their uncles, Merritt Hughes and Condon Adams are federal agents in the Department of Justice, under Waldo Edgar who is head of the department. Director Edgar calls Bob and Tully into his office, with their uncles. Foreign spies are after new secrets concerning radio that are stored in the War Department, and the Director wants inside men acting as agents of his office. He makes the young men special agents and they are to help Hughes and Adams catch the spies before secret material can be compromised. A nice little mystery that takes place mostly in the archive division of the War Department.

Agent Nine #2: “Agent Nine And The Jewel Mystery” by Graham M. Dean. In this second novel in the series, young FBI Agents Bob Houston (Agent Nine) and Tully Ross are assigned to jewel smuggling case in Florida. Agent 9 is sent to Atelissa, while Tully is sent to Nira, where they are supposed to uncover the operation. Most of the story takes place on train, the Limited, with a few stops along the way. In fact, Tully never makes his destination, being thrown from the train and ending up in the hospital. Agent Nine does make it to his destination in the last fifty pages of this 252-page novel, where a local sheriff helps in rescuing Agent Nine’s uncle, Federal Agent Merritt Hughes, and stopping the gem smugglers. Over all, it was a good story that moved well, though the writing was aimed at young adult boys. Bob Houston and Tully Ross act like two teenagers in competition with each other, instead of mature federal agents. Sadly, the publisher used the same cover on both hardbacks. The author wrote a lot of juvenile series for boys in the 1930s, and was a decent writer. He could have easily turned his hand to pulp stories and contributed to G-Men Detective with more mature action. Still, these are fun and easy reads.