Collins and Co. By Captain Jack Elliott. (George Allen and
lJnwin. 6s.)—Of the great crowd of detective novels which are published in the course of a year, there are a few which, by reason either of their merits or of their faults, can claim individual notice ; and Collins and Co. is attractive because its author is concerned, not with domestic crime, but with territorial conces- sions, foreign lands, and international diplomacy, and because he has been at some pains to weave a properly complicated plot. But there are faults in the book. We are vexed by Captain Elliott's insistence on the surprises of his melodrama ; we wish that, instead of preparing the way for them and expounding them to us, he would leave them to make their own effect ; and there is, especially at the beginning of the story, a far too ready use of the theatrical device whereby a character settles down to tell us his life-history. The truth is that Captain Elliott has a good tale to tell, but is unskilled in the art of stage-management. His book has the virtues, the mistakes, and the general air of an amateur performance.
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