28 JUNE 1919, Page 21

Beyond the I Vail. By Duca Litta-Visconti-Arese. (T. Werner Laurie.

8s. net.)—The interest of this story is in its picture of the war in Italy, the heroine being a professed nun in the convent of the Order of Poor Claires. The book may be recommended to the Peace Congress in Paris as throwing much light on the atti- tude of the inhabitants of the Austrian part of the Adriatic littoral towards their beloved Italy. English readers will be more than astonished at the scarcely veiled hints of the relations between the German Secret Service and the hierarchy of the Roman Church. It is difficult to judge whether it would have been really possible for a German woman spy to be the Principal of an Italian convent, but such is the situation in this book, and tho consequences to the unfortunate heroine are of course disastrous.