This novel, first published in 1928, and probably a magazine serial before that, differs from the other novels I've read by this author. In this, although there is a hinting at a supernatural element, everything in it is explicable by technology and trickery, and it falls rather more into the fast paced detective/thriller/adventure genre of the time with lots of action.

Briefly, the hero, James Kirkham, is an adventurer known for retrieving ancient artefacts sometimes in rather daring fashion - a sort of Indiana Jones before that character was even thought of. At the start, he has been well paid for one of these missions, but has just lost the lot in bad investments on the stock market - which turn out to have been deliberately manipulated to do so by a crime boss with a difference. This man, who leads a worldwide organisation that includes people highly placed in the government, media, industry and other sectors, and who also keeps an army of drug addicts who will do anything for him for their next fix, has a large collection of stolen art treasures. He has had James watched for some time, has been manipulating him, and has now decided to force James to join his organisation. He arranges to kidnap James in such a way that James' appeals to authority go nowhere. James ends up at his hideout and is drawn into the crime boss' game - and the central part of that is his self-styled posing as Satan.

James and the heroine Eve, with whom he first clashes but shortly forms a devoted attachment, are pretty cardboard as characters, but I liked the Cockney thief/engineer without whom they would not have a prayer. A stereotype, but still engaging.

The book is quite a page turner and not hard to zoom through in a day or so. Pretty forgettable, but good fun while it lasts. There are some slightly old fashioned attitudes in it, with James' views of Satan's possible part Chinese heritage, and the term the Cockney uses which wouldn't be acceptable today - chink - but the book is much less beset by racism than a lot of the popular writing of that period, and even if the heroine is quite often tearful at least she doesn't faint or have hysterics. So a 3 star read. ( )

review of
A. Merritt's Seven Footprints to Satan
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 3, 2017

I have a vague memory of reading Merritt's name in association w/ H. P. Lovecraft's. That may be completely false. I've never found Lovecraft very interesting so, apparently, if I ran across that association it didn't do much to compel me to read Merritt. As such, this is the 1st bk I've read by him. I reckon that if I'd been alive & been a literate adult & read it in 1928 when it was 1st published I might've just found it ridiculous pop garbage. However, 89 yrs later, I found it quite enjoyable - maybe b/c I like all the pulp trappings that it excels in exploring.

The 1st p proclaims: "Over 5,000,000 Copies of A. Merritt's Books Sold In Avon Editions". That's impressive. I wonder if Merritt got any of the money or if the publishers managed to screw him. I think of all the big budget movies that've been made from Philip K. Dick bks & I think about his reputedly being so poor that he had to resort to eating dog food when he was alive. According to Wikipedia, Merritt was highly pd so I can't point an accusatory finger at publishers for this one.

"The clock was striking eight as I walked out of the doors of the Discoverers' Club and stood for a moment looking down lower Fifth Avenue. As I paused, I felt with full force that uncomfortable sensation of being watched that had both puzzled and harassed me for the past two weeks. A curiously prickly, cold feeling somewhere deep under the skin on the side the watchers are located; an odd sort of tingling pressure. It is a queer sort of a sensitivity that I have in common with most men who spend much of their lives in the jungle or desert. It is a throwback to some primitive sixth sense, since all savages have it until they get introduced to the white man's liquor." - p 5

That's the 1st paragraph. Whether or not the scene & sentiments are cliché it set a mood for me that I enjoyed & expectations that I looked forward to having fulfilled. I'm reminded of a bk I read when I was very young called The Spider's Den (1925), a detective story by Johnston McCulley. The atmosphere of that one must've made an impression on me. I have a vague memory of its featuring a diabolically clever criminal mastermind running a large network from a secret location full of secret passages. I'm further reminded of the series of movies, initially made by Fritz Lang, about Dr. Mabuse, the 1st of wch was called Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (Dr Mabuse der Spieler) (1922). I suppose these malevolent supergenius stories were all the rage in the 1920s.

The main character's name is James Kirkham. Of course, he has to be a man of unusual courage & character to pit himself against the crimelord.

"As I turned down Fifth Avenue from the Discoverers' Club a man passed me, a man whose gait and carriage, figure and clothing, were oddly familiar.

"I stood stock still, looking after him as he strolled leisurely up the steps and into the Club.

"The, queerly disturbed, I resumed my walk. There had been something peculiarly familiar, indeed disquietingly familiar, about that man. What was it? Making my way over to broadway, I went down that street, always aware of the watchers.

"But it was not until I was opposite City Hall that I realized what that truly weird familiarity had been. The realization came to me with a distinct shock.

"In gait and carriage, in figure and clothing, from light brown overcoat, gray soft hat, to strong Malacca cane that man had been—Myself!" - p 8

Obviously, the diabolical potential of that is strong. I wonder when the 1st identity theft story was? According to thebalance.com "In early American history, identity theft was more focused on voter registration and had more to do with ballot stuffing." That means pre-1930s. In Seven Footprints to Satan the charlatan is able to imitate Kirkham so perfectly that even people close to him are unable to tell the difference. I find that extremely unlikely. But, of course, this story is meant to be fantastic not realistic.

As Kirkham gets more & more hopelessly enmeshed in the plot he has a moment of vain hope that someone in the general public might help him: "The hopefulness faded steadily as I studied their faces. Sadly I realized that old Vanderbilt had been all wrong when he had said, "The public be damned." What he ought to have said was "The public be dumb." (p 22)

Kirkham eventually meets his puppet-master adversary Satan (as the title has more or less already told you):

"I began to glance about the dimly lighted room and realized that here, like the great hall, was another amazing treasure chamber. if half of what my eyes took in was genuine, the contents of that room alone were worth millions. But they could not be—not even an American billionaire could have gathered such things.

""But they are genuine," again he read my thoughts. "I am a connoisseur indeed—the greatest in the world. Not alone of paintings, and of gems and wines and other masterpieces of man's genius. I am a connoisseur of men and women. A collection of what, loosely, are called souls. That is why, James Kirkham, you are here!"" - p 30

"Satan for the first time turned his eyes away from me, looking over my head. I had come to the third stage of this mysterious game.

""Did you ever hear the legend of the seven shining footsteps of Buddha?" he asked me. I shook my head." - p 36

Now, rather than spoil this for the possible reader, I'll make up my own story about "the seven shining footsteps of Buddha": Buddha & Satan were playing chess w/ unborn children as the pieces. Satan's unborn children were capable of breathing fire while Buddha's were capable of being so ethereal that fire left them unscathed. Both of them had tricks up their sleeves that were unfathomable to the other not b/c of superior trickiness but b/c of massively incompatible mindsets. Satan had just fused half of his pieces into one massive super-powered meta-piece & divided the remaining pieces into a multitude of almost invisibly small pieces that were plagues.

If Buddha's pieces had been made of any sort of material susceptible to decay, such as ivory or wood, the plagues wd've been able to render them inoperable. Instead, Buddha's pieces were made of transcendent intelligence unmoved from their purpose even by the most convincing malicious gossip. 7 strategically placed 'footprints' of these pieces were capable of enlightening any of Satan's pawns so that they became free of Satan's manipulation whilst retaining his good taste in art. His meta-piece immediately stepped on several of these footprints at once & became released from Satan's will. The 1st thing it decided to do was lay down on the chessboard & take a nap - effectively ending the game & experiencing some very pleasant dreams in the process. In its dream, the meta-piece has Kirkham encounter a soldier whose life he'd saved. Both are imprisoned by Satan.

""I was an electrician before the war," came the whisper in the dark. "None better. Master at it. 'E knows I am. It's why 'e lets me live, as I told you. Satan—augh-h-h!

""Things were different after the war. Jobs 'ard to get an' livin' 'igh. Got lookin' at things different, too. Seen lots of muckers who hadn't done a thing in the war but live cushy and pile up loot. What right 'ad they to 'ave all they 'ad when them as 'ad fought an' their families was cold an' 'ungry?

"" 'Andy with my 'ands I always was. An' light on my feet. Climb! Climb like a cat. Climb like a bloody centipede. An' quiet! A spook in galoshes was a parade compared to me. I ain't praisin' myself, sir. I'm just tellin' you.["]" - p 57

I'm sure you can see where that's going. The above speaker, Barker, becomes a cat burglar & from there to one of Satan's pawns. & what diabolical crimelord doesn't have drug addict slaves?

""Looked like dopes," he says, "and then again they didn't. Their faces weren't a sick white, more of a transparent. They didn't behave like dopes, either. They seemed to be talking sensible enough. Dressed top-notch, too."" - p 99

"Dope" apparently originated as a word referring to a thick viscous liquid in the early 19th century. When I was a kid the dangerously fume-producing glue used to put models together was called "dope" or "model airplane dope". In the late 19th century drug users became known as "dope fiends", apparently because the opium smoked was thick & viscous. The US Army's cartoonish idiot character was called "Joe Dope". Perhaps the above-referred characters were Joseph & Josephine Dope.

"" 'E lets me use the kehft slyves," he answered astonishingly.

""That's twice to-night I've heard their name," I said. "What are they?"

""Them?" there was loathing and horror in his voice. "They fair give you the creeps. 'E feeds 'em the kehft. Opium, coke, 'asheesh—they're mother's milk compared to it. Gives each one of 'em 'is or 'er particular Paradise—till they wake up. Murder's the least of what they'll do to get another shot. Them fellows in the white nightgowns that stood on the steps with their ropes, was some of 'em. You've heard of the Old Man of the Mountains who used to send out the assassins. Feller told me about 'em in the war.["]" - p 61

Ah, yes, Hassan i Sabbah. I've never understood what the attraction of the Old Man of the Mountains was for people like William S. Burroughs & Peter Lamborn Wilson. He just seems like yet-another religious manipulator of the worst sort to me. It's interesting to see him pop up, albeit as an aside, in Seven Footprints to Satan. Anyway, this is pulp & it's the type of pulp that has the ingredients for my favorite pulp recipe.

"A castle with no stairs or "honest doors." . . . A labyrinth of secret passages and sliding panels. And the little thief creeping, creeping through the walls, denied the open, patiently marking down one by one their secrets." - p 63

Anyway, yeah, I had fun reading this. In the end, Satan changes his name to Joe Dope & sells real estate under the business name of Winchester & plays chess in the public parks. JUST KIDDING. ( )

This is a fairly silly book, but when making allowances for the time and place (it's an oldie!) it's not exactly a bad read. The characters are unconvincing cardboard cutouts, the hero is dashing, the girl (and she's definitely the girl and no more) is lovely, the villain's very bad, and it's all rather racist and sexist and the plot's laughable and nobody would ever behave like that.

What is does have going for it is it's breathless pulp fiction quality, a certain swaggering bravado, but really it's no more deep than any of those 10 minute serialized movies that used to air before the big picture. I would have eaten this up as a tween, but now, I recognize it for what it was, and will move on to more satisfying fare.

Incidentally, despite appearances, this is a action-suspense-thriller, not a supernatural fantasy of any kind. I don't think that's really a spoiler--you should be able to know your genre going in!

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). ( )

Abraham Merritt's Seven Footprints to Satan was first serialized in 1927 and issued as a complete novel in 1928, but it's been through a whole stack of paperback reprintings. It's a pulpy action tale with no real theological pretenses, and it is entirely light reading. Seven Footprints has a cinematic feel, and was made into a movie in 1929.

l took a perverse amusement in imagining the protagonist James Kirkham with the appearance of a young William Shatner. And in fact the pacing of the book and its contrived dilemmas are somewhat reminiscent of the original Star Trek and other TV adventure dramas of that vintage. Kirkham is a "famous explorer," i.e. a sort of generic resourceful man of action. He is recruited -- conscripted, rather -- by an arch-criminal who styles himself as Satan. For most of the book, Kirkham tries to escape Satan's domination, eventually determining to rescue others as well. There's an obligatory romantic plot vector and some irksome orientalist racism.

Although the author had a longstanding interest in the occult and amassed a considerable esoteric library, such studies are not evident in this book.