Verona's Father. By David Christie Murray. (Chatto and Windt's. 6s.)—Mr.
Christie Murray always writes carefully and. well, but we must protest against the little deception which he practises on his readers in this book. The story deals with Colonel Pemberton Benham, a most abominable old scoundrel, and the " Verona's Father" of the title. All through the story he makes life intolerable for every one connected with him, but the reader is sustained by the thought that as he is old and drunken the Colonel must be meant to relieve the world of his presence before the end of the book. When in the last few chapters the Colonel commits a murder, and then in a fit of drunken excitement starts out in a little boat in a great storm to the rescue of a ship in peril, the reader at length makes sure that here is the last of him. Not at all; the Colonel returns in perfect safety, and the book abruptly ends. This seems so sur- prising that one cannot help wondering whether the author did not suddenly get tired of the whole affair, and round it off in a hurry. Why is nothing more heard of the murder, as it has already been made clear that the Colonel was the last persom seen in company with the murdered man As the book ends in this indeterminate way there seems no reason why it should have been so long, as any other chapter would have done as well for the conclusion as the final one. However, the story is decidedly interesting, and it certainly is still somewhat unusual tr. find vie alive and triumphant at the end of the last chapter.
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