E.W. Hornung was an English author best known for writing the A.J. Raffles series about an English gentleman thief in the late 19th century.

E.W. Hornung was an English author best known for writing the A.J. Raffles series about an English gentleman thief in the late 19th century.

E.W. Hornung was an English author best known for writing the A.J. Raffles series about an English gentleman thief in the late 19th century.

Mr. Justice Raffles is one of fiction writer E.W. Hornung's most famous works.

E.W. Hornung was an English author best known for writing the A.J. Raffles series about an English gentleman thief in the late 19th century.

Raffles is, in many ways, a deliberate inversion of Sherlock Holmes: he is a 'gentleman thief, ' living at a very upscale address in London, playing cricket for the Gentlemen of England and supporting himself by carrying out ingenious burglaries. He is called the 'Amateur Cracksman, ' and differentiates between himself and the 'professors' -- professional criminals from the lower classe

Meeting failure in his search for wealth in the 1851 Australian gold rush, a dispirited Mr. Cole takes the next available ship back to England -- and falls in love with Eva Denison, a beautiful and accomplished young woman traveling with her exotic Portuguese step-father. After a disaster at sea Cole returns to anonymity in London... or so he thinks. Events lead to the discovery of a horrible conspiracy, and then to an adventure that may cost Cole his greatest love.