The Black Mask by E. W. Hornung

When I read The Amateur Cracksman a few weeks ago, I was entertained and amused, but afterwards, I kept on thinking about the stories, and I liked them better and better in retrospect, until I was so eager to read more that I just had to read the second collection. I really didn't expect to enjoy these stories as much as I have, but I love them. They're written somewhat confusingly at times, the action moves either too fast or too slow, and I wish there was a bit less cricket jargon, but the characters and the relationship between them is so fascinating. Raffles is incredibly charming, but he can be manipulative and cruel, and the relationship between him and Bunny is twisted and almost masochistic. Raffles constantly uses Bunny, and Bunny knows it, and loves it. The stories are really unusually morally ambiguous for Victorian literature, or for any age at all for that matter, since Raffles is presented as heroic and admirable, but is clearly an evil charmer whom the narrator is utterly taken in by and taken with. I absolutely hated the last story, which seemed like a dreadful attempt at a redemption story, in which patriotism obscures and outweighs any past wrongdoing, but all the other stories were really great. I loved that Bunny and Raffles are unabashed thrill-seekers, who get the highest pleasure and excitement in life from dangerous and criminal activity. Considering the fact that in the Victorian era, ideas like certain class or racial groups having a 'criminal gene' were widespread, making two upper-class characters take a gleeful pleasure in crime, showing no repentance, is a really bold and interesting move.