His Lots or His Life. By Richard Marsh. (Chatto and
Winans. 6e.)—The Woman in the Car. By the some author. (T. Fisher Unwin. 6s.)—It is not every author who dares to produce two long six-shilling novels at once, yet neither of Mr. Marsh's seems to have suffered from careless writing. They are, perhaps, not of a kind whose success depends to any large extent on individuality. One, His Love or His Life, is a drama of love and emotion fairly well devised; the other, The Woman in the Car, is an admirable tale of adventure. The latter story starts well, for a motor- car, standing in Pall Mall at 2 a.m., acquires significance when three women are observed separately to enter and leave it, and when the chauffeur proves, on further investi- gation, to have been most bloodily murdered ; and the plot, in its development, le far more intricate and thrilling than the Police Court cases of this dull world. Mr. Marsh has made only one artistic mistake, and we will not be so ungrateful as to emphasize it. The obvious disadvantage of this particular type of detective story is that it is so long and so complex—we will not say diffuse—as to necessitate our careful attention to every word, and few people are in the habit of reading light fiction when they are capable of accurate concentration. But, if we frequently lost the thread and recovered it with difficulty, we can only blame ourselves, and not Mr. Marsh, who has written a capital melodrama.
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