5 JUNE 1897, Page 26

Circumstantial Evidence. By J. H. Swingler. (Digby and Long,) —This

is a sensational story of the meet familiar type, for there is absolutely nothing in it to interest one except the question, who murdered Mr. G. W. Masters, of .Hillside, who was found within a few hundred yards of his own house shot through the head r Mr. Swingler shows, however, considerable skill in enmeshing Whitacker, a solicitor in the place, in. a net of circumstantial evidence. At the same time, he would have shown still greater skill bad he not made it only too plain, whenever the Irish farmer, drunkard, and Fenian conspirator, O'Dowd, appears upon the scene, that he must be the man. The love affair between the daughter of the murdered man and Whitacker, who is accused of causing his death, is of the rather hackneyed, pathetic sort, and the last

desperate effort of Walters, the private detective, to work upon the'SiiPerstitious fears of O'Dowd, is a trifle too incredible. The ordinary lover of sensational fiction will not, however, make any serious objection to such incidents.