ion. That was the first half,
in which _Burke Denby_, the heir to (dollar) millions, romantically
defied his father and married his aunt's nursery governess, and
immediately started to live the reverse of happy-ever after. All this,
the contrast between ideals in a mansion and love in a jerry-built
villa, and the thousand ways in which _Mrs. Denby_ got upon her
husband's nerves and generally blighted his existence, are told with
an excellently human and sympathetic understanding, upon which I make
my cordial congratulations to Miss ELEANOR H. PORTER. But because
the book, however human, belongs, after all, to the category of "Best
Sellers" it appears to have been found needful to furbish up this
excellent matter with an incredible ending. That _Mrs. Denby_ should
retire with her infant to Europe, in order to educate herself to her
husband's level, I did not mind. This thing has been done before now
even in real life. But that, on returning after the lapse of years,
she should introduce the now grown-up daughter, unrecognised, as
secretary to her father! "Somehow ... you remind me strangely.... Tell
me of your parents." "My daddy ... I never knew him." Or words to that
effect. It is all there, spoiling a tale that deserved better.

* * * * *

The voracious novel-reader is apt to hold detective stories in the
same regard that the Scotchman is supposed to entertain towards
whisky--some are better than others, but there are no really bad ones.
_The Pointing Man_ (HUTCHINSON) is better than most, in the first
place because it takes us "east of Suez"--a pleasant change from
the four-mile radius to which the popular sleuths of fiction mostly
confine their activities; and, secondly, because it combines a maximum
of sinister mystery with a minimum of actual bloodshed; and, lastly,
because our credulity is not strained unduly either by the superhuman
ingenuity of the hunter or an excess of diabolical cunning on the part
of the quarry. Otherwise the story possesses the usual features. There
is the clever young detective, in whose company we expectantly scour
the bazaars and alleys of Mangadone in search of a missing boy. There
are Chinamen and Burmese, opium dens and curio shops, temples and
go-downs. Miss MARJORIE DOUIE has more than a superficial knowledge
of her stage setting, and gets plenty of movement and colour into
it. And if she has elaborated the characters and inter-play of her
Anglo-Bur