The Squire of Wandales. By A. Shield. (Methuen and Co.)—If
the final confession of Ninian Scrope, the squire of Wandales, is accepted by the readers of this book as it is by at least one of those to whom it is entrusted in the story, we have here a night- mare in real life. For Ninian is a systematic wife-killer, and has been so from before he attained his majority ; when he gets tired of a wife or she offends him, he kills her and in due course takes another. The bulk of this book is taken up with his attentions to Alice Dobree, to whom he gets engaged while admiring another girl, Lelgarde by name, and who dies, but not by his hand. There is rather too much that is obviously altogether improbable in this story, and although its author is very ambitious, it cannot be considered a success in any sense.
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