Frank L. Packard

Jimmie Dale was the most brilliant of all thieves, a member of society by day, at night a celebrated cat burglar, "The Grey Seal." But he was only a pawn in the hands of the "Tocsin," the mysterious, unseen woman who forced him to steal--for good! With both the police and the underworld baying at his heels, Jimmie Dale uses his criminal talents to right wrongs, save lives and reputations, and expose wrongdoers to the light of day. How could Jimmie help but fall in love with the Tocsin--and how could he know that when he finally found her, he'd be placing her life in the gravest danger and that their adventures would only be beginning!

In 1914 a character appeared who would permanently transform popular fiction. Frank Packard's Gray Seal melded elements from A. J. Raffles, Jimmy Valentine, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Ars ne Lupin, but those traits were combined with an entirely new concept: the gifted young man who conceals his identity behind a mask to fight crime in the big city. It had never been done before and it's never stopped being done since. Jimmie Dale, the high society millionaire behind the Gray Seal persona, helped to launch the hero pulp boom of the 1930s and was a direct influence on the Green Hornet, the Spider, the Phantom, and especially The Shadow. The Gray Seal template was adopted by the comic book industry as well, and well into the Twenty-first Century continues to appear there, on television, and in the movies.And now, for the first time ever the complete Jimmie Dale saga is being reprinted in a set of authoritative editions. The personal papers of Gray Seal creator Frank Packard have been consulted for this project, along with various unpublished works of fiction by him that add further insight to the series. Also, a detailed chronology has been established for the novels so they can be considered in their proper historical setting. The definitive Gray Seal collection is finally here, beginning with the novel that forever changed adventure fiction - and the larger world of popular entertainment.

Frank Lucius Packard (1877-1942) was a Canadian novelist. He was born in Montreal, Quebec and as a young man went to work as a civil engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway. His experiences working on the railroad led to his writing a series of mystery novels, the most famous of which featured a character called "Jimmie Dale"; who first appeared in the novel The Adventures of Jimmie Dale in 1917. He was a wealthy playboy by day, but at night put on a costume and became The Grey Seal, who enters businesses or homes and cracks safes, always leaving a grey seal behind to mark his conquest, but never taking anything.

John "Doc" Madison, The Flopper, and Pale Face Larry have overstayed their welcome scamming people. The police are on their tail, and they have to find somewhere to hide to evade capture. Doc finds a newspaper article about a faith healer in a small town. He decides that his gang of crooks could hide quite well down there and make a profit to boot They begin to con the local townsfolk claiming that the funds will go to creating a chapel for the people. And then the most outrageous thing happens: There is a true faith healing and the foolproof plan to earn money has now becoming unraveled from the inside out.