THE WATCHER IN THE WOOD. By Maurice G. 'Kiddy. (Mitchinson.
7s. 6d.)--Mr. Kiddy, having given us two excellent " shockers," now partially breaks new ground. We say " partially "heeause he again uses his fertile imagina- tion to make our flesh creep. His hero is Captain Wetherby, a young officer of the Regency period, who is sent to a lonely Essex village, near which is a wood haunted by a vicious maniac, who spreads terror through the neighbourhood. Wetherby, who falls in love with the maniac's ward, has some of those eerie adventures which the writer describes so well. But Mr. Kiddy has so contrived his story as to introduce Beau Brummel, the green man " of Brighton, and other historical figures, and to give us some convincingly natural pictures of eighteenth-century social and wayfaring life. Some readers may feel that he has mixed two styles a little indiscriminately. But at all events he has produced a novel which rivets the attention, and which suggests that he may some day succeed as well with historical romance as he has already done with sensational fiction.
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