The Web of Fate. By W. J. Wilding. (Hurst and
Blackett.)— This story should give almost absolute satisfaction to lovers of melodramatic fiction. It is spiritedly written ; it is full of startling incidents, including a couple of murders, a theft of diamonds, a hunt by a detective, and a suicide ; while as for "the superior fiend" in it, it will be enough to say that "the rounded contour of her skin" is "in keeping with the elliptic form in which her countenance was moulded," and that the outline of her upper lip is "fashioned like the bow of Eros." Perhaps the contrast between the heroine, Kate Lovell, and that gambling adventurer, her father, is improbably great ; and the fun, which is contributed to the story chiefly by a sad blockhead of a country inspector of police, borders, to say the least of it, on extravagance. But the plot is skilfully constructed; and it would be difficult to say whether the conspiracy by Digby and Marcia against the peace of the hero and heroine, or the counter-conspiracy against Digby and Marcia by Banks the detective, aided by Captain Lovell, is the better contrived or worked out. The tragedy with which the book closes la, in its way, a masterpiece. Altogether, The Web of Fate is an excellent specimen of the class of fiction to which it belongs.
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