To Save Himself. By Captain Claude Bray. 2 voles (Bentley
and Son.)—Captain Bray, who on the face of it is a novice in the art of fiction, has performed a feat calculated to rouse the envy of some of his seniors who have had years of practice in plot- weaving. Ile has written a story about a murder, as have some hundreds of other novelists, and in his book, as in theirs, a person of whose innocence the reader is perfectly assured is suspected and all but convicted of the crime. So far every- thing is on old and familiar lines ; but whereas in the ordinary murder-story every person of common shrewdness can see not only who is innocent, but who is guilty, Captain Bray keeps his secret so well, that when it is revealed in the last chapter but one of the second volume, the revelation has all the force of a complete surprise, and yet the solution of the mystery does not involve any straining of probability, but is felt to be quite natural. This is really ingenious, and though in other respects the novel is commonplace enough, Captain Bray is to bo congratulated on
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