The Adventures of Martin Hewitt. Third Series. By Arthur Morrison.
(Ward, Lock, and Co.)—The biographer of the pro- fessional "investigator," Martin Hewitt, has constituted himself successor to the biographer of the old favourite, Sherlock Holmes, and in this capacity has done very well indeed. Here we have a third series of " investigations," but they reveal no falling off in ingenuity, painstaking industry, or literary " setting." Perhaps in the two last there is a slight straining after effect. The careful stealing of a child, and not for one occasion merely, in order to please a poor mad father, and the employment of the devices of kidnapping and burglary to secure a relic of Joanna Southcote, are so far-fetched as almost to pass one's powers of belief. " The Case of the Flitterbat Lancers' " and " The Case of the Dead Skipper" are, however, positively marvels in their way. In the first, the mystery of the concealment of the Wedlake jewels is solved by means of a piece of music, though too late to be of any practical benefit. In the second, what appears a hopelessly inscrutable murder is traced by means of the only possible motive to its author. Altogether, no better—or, if one may use the word, more " honest "—detective-stories than Mr. Morrison's are being published at the present time.
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