1 FEBRUARY 1902, Page 23

The Green Turban. By I. Maclaren Cobban. (John Long. Cs.)

—The first few chapters of this book contain such choice tortures and horrors that it should have been reviewed in the Christmas holidays. The scene is laid at Fez, and the reader's flesh creeps in the most satisfactory fashion. But, alas! once Mr. Cobban gets his characters into the regions of civilisation the novel is no longer interesting. After all, it is too much to expect bloodshed for the whole three hundred odd pages, and in the end we are taken back to Morocco and treated to a splendidly gory last chepter. But it has not toe charm of the beginning, which for some reason or other is really blood-curdling.