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Robertson, James. James Robertson was created by the German author Kurt Falkenstein and appeared in James Robertson, Der Weltdetektiv #1-136 (1919-1922) and James Robertson, Der Weltdetektiv #1-17 (1925?); the series was reprinted in Poland in 1924 and in Czechoslovakia in 1926.

James Robertson is a Great Detective modeled on Nick Carter (I). Robertson takes on criminals and cases in locations around the world. He fights an Evil Surgeon Mad Scientist trying to recreate von Frankenstein’s experiment. He stops Thuggees in pursuit of a gold statue of Kali stolen by the British. Robertson duels with Arsène Lupin and other Lupins (including the “Master Thief of Paris”), fights a “modern Bluebeard,” and fights Professor Moriarty himself. Robertson saves “the Victim of the Cliff Witch,” acquires “the Pearl of Death,” fights his own doppelgänger, “a Modern Bluebeard,” “the Man With Twelve Fingers,” “the Woman with the Death’s Head,” “the Cave of Devils,” Yellow Peril opium dealers, a golem, and “the Hell Machine." 

Robertson appears in stories with titles like “The Demon of the van Straaten Family,” “The Riddle of the Devil’s Hood,” and “The Devils Under the Masks.”

* I'm including the James Robertson stories in the Best of the Encyclopedia list because of their ideasplosions. Ah, now here is a classic ideasplosive set of heftroman stories in the classic German style. I am admittely a sucker for stories with titles like "The Hell Machine" and series that bring in Thuggees, Arsene Lupin, and Professor Moriarty more or less willynilly. But the Robertson stories really do merit inclusion in the Best of the Encyclopedia list. Robertson had a long life (136 issues and four years in the immediate post-WW1 atmosphere in Germany is more than respectable), the ideasplosions in the stories read like a laundry list of awesome coolness, and the narrative style is better than average. Recommended. 

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