The Leavenworth Case : a Lawyer's Story. By Anna Katharine
Green. (G. P. Putnam and Sons, New York.)—It seems to us a defect in this story, that the very beginning of it gives a tolerably plain hint of the end. It at once occurs to the reader that the man who brings the news of the crime is himself the criminal. If the first interview between the secretary and the lawyer had been made perfectly neutral, and not permitted to furnish any indications of the fact, the very skilful efforts which the writer makes to keep the reader's mind in suspense, and to shift the burden of suspicion from one to another, would have had much more effect. Compression, too, might have been applied, with much benefit. How many of Poe's marvellous tales could be put into this volume ! Still, The Leaven- worth Case is a meritorious effort.
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