Anthony Skene

"Zenith's crimson-irised eyes were reflective. He stood there long of leg and broad of shoulder, immaculately dressed, groomed to perfection, cold as an icicle; and dangerous; transcendently dangerous."

The second title in Savoy's new Millennium book line, Monsieur Zenith the Albino is a rare gem from the golden age of the pulps. This novel by Anthony Skene has been out of print—and virtually unobtainable—since 1936.

• Introduction by Jack Adrian / Foreword by Michael Moorcock
• Numerous illustrations by the original Zenith artists from Union Jack and Detective Weekly

Jacket design by John Coulthart.

• A few copies of this title are still available. See the Orders page for purchase details.

Indifferent to gratitude or reward, asserting—and, perhaps, believing—that he seeks only the final diversion of the damned, to dice with death; threatened on the one hand by the police, and, on the other, by political chicanery, this strange creature crashes through.

Monsieur Zenith is the strangest, most bizarre, character ever devised in thriller fiction."

Notwithstanding Sexton Blake's reputation as 'the office boy's Sherlock Holmes', Monsieur Zenith has more than a little of Conan Doyle's creation himself, being, as already mentioned, a prodigious user of opiates, a master of disguise and a virtuoso violinist. Although Zenith operates on the wrong side of the law, he is morally on the side of justice, for all his amoral posturing: when a lady's welfare is at stake Zenith knows just what to do.

Despite Skene's punchy, highly readable style, this isn't a forgotten masterpiece; but as a criticism this misses the point. Zenith is a character delirious enough to deserve to live on—equal parts Holmes, Fantomas and Diabolik, as well as having been a formative influence on Moorcock's Elric—and Savoy's presentation here makes the volume nothing less than a paean to weird pulp in all its crazed glory. Not only is the original text incredibly obscure—the publishers are aware of only three extant copies—but Savoy have also included original Zenith illustrations, including a number of covers from the likes of Detective Weekly and Union Jack, as well as new illustrations from Savoy stalwarts Kris Guidio and John Coulthart, an exhaustively researched foreword by Jack Adrian and a fascinating reminiscence on the contemporary pulp scene by Moorcock. This is about as far as it gets from cynical hack publishing—but then Savoy sets higher standards than most. Recommended."

"Anthony Skene's Monsieur Zenith the Albino is a remarkable rediscovery from the heyday of Britain's forgotten pulp pages. Skene's crimson-eyed crook first appeared in 1918 as a worthy opponent of Sexton Blake—the detective once known as the office boy's Sherlock Holmes—and his blood-strewn adventures continued for the next two decades, as he proved himself a villain on a par with Professor Moriarty or Fu-Manchu. Skene soon disposed of the superfluous sleuth and devoted whole books to Zenith alone. This wonderful new edition of a 1936 adventure reveals crime writing at its most elegant and machiavellian. With a fascinating introduction by Michael Moorcock, who claims that Zenith inspired his own albino fantasy anti-hero Elric, this is a fabulously designed book, and one that only a small press would have had the courage to produce."