New Nick Carter Weekly, No. 39

Nick Carter Weekly—Issue No. 39 (September 25, 1897) This issue features a serial titled "In Nick Carter's Hands," credited to the author of Nick Carter stories. The narrative opens with a suicide attempt in an Elizabeth, New Jersey hotel. A man named J. G. Laroche, a Georgian farmer, has been swindled by con artists in a "green-goods" counterfeiting scheme: having paid $300 for counterfeit currency advertised as legitimate $3,000 in greenbacks, he receives only $16 in real money. Desperate, Laroche turns on gas in his room but is rescued by Jasper Orrant, a young lawyer. The story then reveals Orrant's personal tragedy: his fiancée Viola Laroche (the farmer's educated daughter) abandoned him three months earlier with a mysterious suitor. Laroche reveals that the con man Lafarge—who defrauded him—is the same man who seduced and abducted his daughter. The narrative combines detective/crime elements with romantic melodrama, establishing a plot where Orrant must recover Viola and presumably apprehend the criminals. The story is written in vernacular dialect for the rural Georgian characters.