Nick Carter first appeared in 1886, and was still going strong over 100 years later. For the most part he appeared in the ubiquitous nickel weeklies, 5 cent pulp magazines containing single 20,000 word novelettes, and padded out with a few short articles. At a book a week, it took more than one writer to sustain the demand, and there was a stable of anonymous hacks who wrote them.</p>
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<p>This is a very typical Nick Carter of the pre-first war era, and (like most of them, I suspect) it makes very little sense. But it's definitely worth reading for the absurd dialogue alone.</p>
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<p>A very important document has been stolen from the Russian Embassy in Washington DC, and instead of getting their own secret service, the CHEKA, on the case, the Russian Ambassador naturally calls in American private eye Nick Carter.