Frank L. (Frank Lucius) Packard

Frank L. (Frank Lucius) Packard
Frank Lucius Packard (1877-1942) was a Canadian author best known for his series of mystery novels featuring the character Jimmie Dale, a wealthy man who leads a double life as a crime-fighting vigilante known as "The Gray Seal." Packard's writing, heavily influenced by his engineering background and his work as a railroad engineer, often incorporated technical details and vivid descriptions of early 20th-century urban settings. His works were popular during his lifetime, contributing significantly to the development of the crime and detective fiction genres.

Author's Books:


CHAPTER I THE GRAY SEAL Among New York's fashionable and ultra-exclusive clubs, the St. James stood an acknowledged leader—more men, perhaps, cast an envious eye at its portals, of modest and unassuming taste, as they passed by on Fifth Avenue, than they did at any other club upon the long list that the city boasts. True, there were more expensive clubs upon whose membership roll scintillated... more...

I. NIGHT IN THE UNDERWORLD It was like some shadowy pantomime: The dark mouth of an alleyway thrown into murky relief by the rays of a distant street lamp...the swift, forward leap of a skulking figure...a girl's form swaying and struggling in the man's embrace. Then, a pantomime no longer, there came a half threatening, half triumphant oath; and then the girl's voice, quiet, strangely... more...

THE NIGHT OPERATOR Toddles, in the beginning, wasn't exactly a railroad man—for several reasons. First, he wasn't a man at all; second, he wasn't, strictly speaking, on the company's pay roll; third, which is apparently irrelevant, everybody said he was a bad one; and fourth—because Hawkeye nicknamed him Toddles. Toddles had another name—Christopher Hyslop Hoogan—but Big... more...

CHAPTER I SMARLINGHUE A diminutive gas-jet's sickly, yellow flame illuminated the room with poverty-stricken inadequacy; high up on the wall, bordering the ceiling, the moonlight, as though contemptuous of its artificial competitor, streamed in through a small, square window, and laid a white, flickering path to the door across a filthy and disreputable rag of carpet; also, through a rent in the... more...

THE HOUSE ON THE BLUFF It was a wilder gust than any that had gone before. It tore along the beach with maniacal fury; and, shrieking in a high, devilishly-gleeful falsetto, while the joints of the little inn, rheumatic with age, squeaked in its embrace, shook the Taverne du Bas Rhône much after the fashion of a terrier shaking a rat. And with that gust, loosening the dilapidated fastening on the... more...

THE MIRACLE MAN THE "ROOST" He was a misshapen thing, bulking a black blotch in the night at the entrance of the dark alleyway—like some lurking creature in its lair. He neither stood, nor kneeled, nor sat—no single word would describe his posture—he combined all three in a sort of repulsive, formless heap. The Flopper moved. He came out from the alleyway onto the pavement, into the lurid... more...