FICTION.
THE MAN FROM THE CLOUDS.t
Ma. STOREH CLOUSTON, having written one excellent spy story, nas successfully challenged comparisons with himself in a second venture. The Man from the Clouds is even better than The Spy in Black. The opening is more dramatic, the psychology shown in the delineation of the principal characters more subtle. Nothing could be better than the way in which the antecedents and training of the narrator, ex-diplomatisti ex-actor, and R.N.V.R. officer, are made to influence his career and achievements as a spy-hunter. Roger Merton was rather at the mercy -of his talent for impersonation; yet though it led him on false trails, it proved his salvation in the long run. The scene is laid almost entirely on one of the " Windy Isles " off the North of -Scotland familiar to readers of The Spy in Black and Mr. Storer Clouston's use of local colour and atmosphere adds greatly to the impressiveness of the . whole. It is not the business of a reviewer to reveal the plot in romances of this order. Let it suffice to say that there is only one German In the dramatis personae, and that in the character of Germania contra toundunt he puts up a terribly efficient fight. Mr. Storer Clouston pays a remarkable tribute to the deliberate, intelligent, cultivated villainy, backed by desperate courage, which German secret agents have displayed throughout the war. The man who for two whole years " played the part of a kind of isolated living base for the German Navy, as a spy, as a destroyer, and as -a murderer," is indeed " brave, brutal, and extraordinary," a powerfully conceived and consistently exe- cuted portrait of " frightfulness " in excel-rig. For the rest, there is excellent character study in the narrator, with his mingled enter- prise- and diffidence, and in the heroine, Jean Rendall, who plays the chief part in the spy-hunt, and is all the more attractive for her moments of self-distrust. The minor personages are well drawn, and humour is not lacking, but Mn Storer Clouston has made .great strides as an artist since the days when he diverted us with such irresponsible extravaganzas as The -Lunatic at Large and The Adven- tures of M. d'Haricot.
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