P. J. DAVENANT

Philip John 'P.J.' Davenant is an agent with British Intelligence.

He is also a teenager.

The period of time for the young man's adventures is shortly after the start of the Great War a year earlier.

According to one inciteful blurb about him, "P.J. is a Tonbridge schoolboy, sixteen years old and possessed of a Sherlockian genius for detective work, who helps to unmask and destroy a formidable confederacy of German spies known as the K.U.W. Of course, he is a super-boy. We cannot really believe in him, but that does not matter in the least. We love him and love to trace his likeness to his great prototype. ... He has a gift for minute observation and can look at a man for a minute and tell you about him; he knows Bradshaw (the train schedule) by hear and German perfectly; he has is intimately acquainted with the properties of explosives and chlorine gas; he has a proper and justifiable contempt for Scotland Yard, and finally, he is 'a proper master of his hands when he sees occasion for using them'."

It is mentioned in the early part of the very first recorded adventure that as he packed for a quick trip, he included his new safety razor, explaining that "P.J.'s cheeks, chin, and upper lip were still as smooth as an egg, the razor had hitherto reposed in uninterrupted peace in its case; but it unquestionably imparted an adult appearance to his dressing-table". The expression 'baby-face' comes to mind - "the boy's peculiarly innocent face was also an asset" we are told.

The asset is to Cyril Ambrose, a fellow who had recently become an Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard and whose talents bring him to the attention of the newly formed Intelligence department. He had met young Davenant a few months before and had "enlisted P.J.'s services as a volunteer in a complicated affair at Christmas" and had recognized the impressive skillset that the young man had as well as "the gift he had for rapidly adapting himself to new conditions". Since that time, Ambrose kept Davenant in mind for strange cases and considering the number of adventures that will ensue, he will make use of those talents a good deal.

The K.U.W. mentioned above stands for the Kaiserliche Ueberseeische Wacht, or Imperial Oversea Guard, and its one main area of attention is the British Isles where its operatives work to conduct sabotage and espionage. This group will prove the main, though not the only, adversary for Davenant during the first set of adventures. After that, the pool of enemies will grow considerably.

This impressive collection of young adult short stories and novellas is impressive in its writing style. It is meant to hold the attention of young readers and it is also capable of entertaining much, much older folk like myself. 

A steady diet of these tales would not be that enjoyable but the joy and convenience of the lengths allows the reader to read one and then come back for another in a day or two.

The P. J. Davenant tales are interesting enough to see why after releasing a volume of them, the author was enticed to come up with more to make another volume, and then more and more.