Set in Authority. By Mrs. Everard Cotes. (A. Constable and
Co. 6s.)—There was once a French farce the point of which was that Madame So-and-so, the central figure iu the story, never made her appearance at all. Mrs. Cotes has chosen this model-for her new novel, Set in Authority, which centres in the figure of Lord Theme, Viceroy of India, a gentleman of whom the reader is told a great deal, but who never actually appears. upon the scene. When authors introduce such magnificent personages as Viceroys this is probably the wisest way of treating them. The plot of the story deals principally with the trial of an English private soldier for murdering a native. The trial is conducted by a native Judge, who passes so lenient a sentence on the soldier that the Viceroy upsets the decision and insists on having a new trial. Mrs. Cotes is always entertaining when she writes about India, and her accounts of Anglo-Indian official society are extremely interesting and instructive reading ; but there is too often a sub-flavour of the disagreeable about the love stories which she introduces, and the love story in this book is no exception to the rule. Readers will find the chapters of which the scene is laid in India very much better reading than the chapters of which the scene is in London. The book is well put together, and the final decision of Ruth Pearse to conceal the real name of the private soldier—a gentleman ranker— because his sister is going to marry the Viceroy who practically condemned him is finely conceived and executed. Mrs. Cotes is never quite at her best in an ordinary novel, her most delicate work being done in books of the type of'" The Simple Adventures of a Memsahib "or" On the Other Side of the Latch." Her present book, though from a literary standpoint not quite in her happiest vein, is, however, well worth reading.
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