The Brigand

The Brigand (1927) is a collection of a dozen fast-paced, frothy crime capers set in a Britain still reeling from 1926s General Strike. An excellent collection of connected short stories all about likeable conman Anthony Newton.

• Newton returning from the Great War and unable to find employment decides start redistributing wealth in his own way.

• Some of the ruses are clever, some only mildly interesting.

Deprived of a legal source of income and faced with homelessness and hunger he decides to become a brigand a sort of modern-day Robin Hood and trick rich capitalists into parting with their ill-gotten gains. This effectively boils down to a series of elaborate cons and heists with crooked and corrupt capitalists as his targets.