I should call Mrs. VICTOR RICKARD a bold plotter--of course in a strictly literary sense. It must at this moment have required some courage to make your hero an agent of the British Secret Service. And having done this she certainly shirks none of the unpleasant possibilities of the situation so created. In the interest of his profession, and for no reward save the service of his country, _Marcus Janover_ is called upon to sacrifice love, friendship, even his personal honour. Just how all this comes about I leave you to discover by _The Light above the Cross Roads_ (DUCKWORTH). It is a powerful and highly original story that has the distinction of breaking entirely new ground in war-novels. The scenes of it, laid partly in Ireland, partly in Berlin, or behind the German lines, are themselves guarantees of the unusual. One slight criticism that I have to make rises from the question whether so expert an "agent" as _Marcus_ would really employ blot-producing ink for his map tracery when, on his own confession, he might have used pencil. But if the blots had not been there the Prussians (oddly obtuse as to the real meaning of _Marcus's_ presence amongst them) would never have arrested _Ursule_, and thus provided a dramatic and unhackneyed situation. There is a gravity and distinction, moreover, about the tale that somehow reminds me of the late Monsignor BENSON. It is undoubtedly a story that should be read.
I am rather puzzled what to say about the _The Grey Shepherd_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), because it is essentially a story that will appeal very differently to readers of different temperaments. Some people will say, "How beautiful!" Others perhaps, "How precious!" and both with a certain truth. For my own part, I should select a middle course, and say that Mrs. J.E. BUCKROSE has had a wholly admirable idea for a short story, which she has done her best to spoil by enlarging it to book dimensions, and a little over-sweetening it. There is real delicacy and beauty in her theme. The youth forced by partial blindness to give up all the hopes for which he had been educated, who becomes a shepherd, solacing himself with his pipe (musical) and the simplicities of country lore for the loss of love and ambition; and eventually, after his death, is deified by rustic tradition into a supernatural helper of "all things that are kind"--here is an idea for the tenderest handling. My feeling is, while giving Mrs. BUCKROSE every credit for such an inspiration, that she should have been a little sterner with herself over the treatment, and thus avoided a certain stickiness that may irritate those who prefer the simplicity of nature to a not quite sufficiently concealed art. But, as I began by saying, it all depends on the individual palate; and, anyhow, the book has the historic excuse of being a very little one, which you can read, with pleasure or irritation, within the hour.