Mr. Justice Raffles by E. W. Hornung

I have, to my infinite regret, arrived at the last of the Raffles chronicles, and I'm not sure that's I'm not going to start re-reading them from the beginning tomorrow because I wound up loving them so much. However, I didn't like this book (the only novel-length one) as much as some of the others. I felt like Raffles was more morally upright than he was in many of the stories, and seems to develop something like a conscience, which I didn't appreciate at all. He still manipulates and deceives Bunny constantly, and Bunny just takes it all with a submission that I'm starting to find slightly maddening. The villain of this story is such a very pantomime villain that every next plot turn was pretty obvious. I would start complaining about the Antisemitism, but Daniel Levy (the villain) isn't really particularly stereotypically Jewish, he just seems like some sort of super-villain, with all possible negative qualities rolled into one somewhat dull character. There's also a pretty annoying romantic plot, but at least Camilla Belsize (the heroine who Raffles is (perhaps) in love with and heroically rejects) seems to have more personality than the (supposed) love of Raffles' life, the doll-like Faustina. The book wasn't as witty and entertaining as some of the stories, which I really missed, but I still loved the absolutely bewildering shower of Victorian slang and Raffles' irrepressible conversation, energy, and inventiveness. It's also one of the only books I've ever read where rain is a positive intervention in the plot, and the earliest novel I've read to mention a 'lavatory basin'. I think that of the Raffles books I like The Amateur Cracksman and A Thief in the Night best, and I don't enjoy anything where Raffles appears to have a sense of morality or indulge in self-blame/loathing.