The Black Diamond. By F. Brett Young. (Collins. 7s. 6d.
net.)—This is a long and detailed biography of Abner Fellows, who begins by being a miner, continues as a navvy, and finally -ends by enlisting in a fit of drunken discouragement. Abner's career throughout is influenced by the women with whom he comes in contact, and with whom, whatever their relations to other people, he finds it impossible to avoid sentimental passages. The interest of the novel is in the character drawing, and .Mr. Brett Young gives a very convincing picture of Abner and the four women, Alice, Barbara, Mary, and Marian. The book, though well and carefully written, is nevertheless rather drab and disappointing. It may be that the reader is not quite convinced of the reality of Abner's successive love affairs, for there is no other special interest in the book to soften the rather sordid details with which it deals. There is very little of the joy in outward things—" the wind on the heath, brother"— with which the author has delighted his readers in his former works. Perhaps realism does not suit Mr. Brett Young. At any rate, the reader will be left with the uncomfortable feeling that the book is painstaking rather than successful.
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