Elusive Isabel

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Elusive Isabel
Author	Jacques Futrelle
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Spy novel
Publisher	A.L. Burt Company or Bobbs-Merrill
Publication date	1909
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	273 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN	NA

Elusive Isabel is a novel by Jacques Futrelle first published in 1909. Set in Washington, D.C., it is a spy novel about an international conspiracy of the "Latin" countries against the English-speaking world with the aim to take over world control.

[edit] Plot summary

The eponymous heroine, Isabel Thorne, is a young woman, half British, half Italian, who works for the Italian secret service and who has been commissioned to bring about the signing of the secret contract right in the capital of the enemy by representatives of all countries involved, both European and American. Her brother, an inventor, has devised a secret weapon by which missiles can be fired from submarines (see also depth charge) which will, it is hoped, secure military dominion over the rest of the world.

Members of the U.S. Secret Service, who have been alerted, are assigned to prevent the signing of this "Latin compact" and bring to justice those involved who have no diplomatic immunity. One young representative by the name of Grimm, however, although absolutely loyal to his government, falls in love with the beautiful foreign agent.

In the end Isabel Thorne, who reciprocates her admirer's love, becomes estranged from her employer, the Italian government, because she does not want Grimm, who has been captured by the conspirators and knows all their secrets, to be murdered. Stripped of all her power and possessions, she unites with him at the end of the novel, no longer elusive.

A trivial novel in its time, Elusive Isabel has been completely forgotten but can now be easily accessed via the Project Gutenberg web site.

[edit] Read on

Another novel set in Washington, D.C. which also deals with various machinations big and small in the nation's capital is Henry Adams's Democracy: An American Novel (1880).