This book is an adaptation " for the complete understanding
of the English-speaking public " from the French of Al. Tristan Bernard's Aux Abois, carried out with highly commend- able tact and skill by Virginia and Frank Vernon and—but for a curiously large number of printer's errors—delightfully produced by the Cresset Press, at a price (6s.) which is cer- tainly not excessive for such an attractive edition. It is the diary of a murderer, from the day of his crime until just before his death, which is both an acute psychologica study and an extremely entertaining thriller. The diary falls into two parts ; the first records the first month after the crime, during which the murderer, Paul Dtunery, wanders undetected about France while the fear of arrest grows, recedes as new interests and new associates temporarily absorb his attention, and grows again ; the second part records the five months he spends in prison, first of all awaiting trial, then waiting for execution, and all the time looking forward with resignation to the peace of death. It is a brilliant piece of imaginative writing, carried out with such insight and precision that the account of the murderer's mental activities seems psychologically true in every detail. It is unquestionably a minor masterpiece, and it is no dissatis- faction with this version, but the most intense interest, that has made the present reviewer immediately order a copy of the original, Bernard's Aux Abois.
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