By Guy Morton.

We have few authors on our fiction list possessed with the same gift of analysis into human character and motive as Mr. Morton. Indeed, nothing pleases him more than to play one type of individual against another, and since their actions culminate, as a rule, in deeds of violence, the author is never lacking either in material or scope for his own peculiar abilities. When, therefore, Mr. Morton turns his attentions to a rather mixed gathering at The Briars, a pleasantly situated country-house, the reader is entitled to expect some starthng disclosures. Nor does he find himself disappointed. Two murders, each of great brutaHty, take place in rapid succession, and the perpetrator, obviously one who has little to learn either in the art of con- cealment or dissimulation, effectively side-tracks the poHce from the vital issues and appears to rest securely behind the cloak of their incompetence. But whoever committed the crime completely under-estimated the talents of the ever vigilant Amor Kairns, who finally brings the criminal to book in an extremely dramatic quick curtain.

London: Skeffington & Son, 1900. 288p.