NOVELS.
THE CIRCULAR STUDY.*
MADAME HUMBERT has rendered a conspicuous and memor- able service to all who profess the art of detective fiction. She has rendered it well-nigh impossible for any plot to be denounced on the ground of its lack of verisimilitude. The creation of the Brothers Crawford has lent fresh lustre to the hackneyed saying that truth is stranger than fiction. Unluckily there is another aspect to the exploit of the French adventuress. She has at once vindicated and eclipsed the wildest feats of literary invention ; she has spoiled the market for sensational fiction ; she has erected a new standard of enterprise and ingenuity so arduous and transcendental that the panting novelist must toil after her in vain. She has, in fine, lent a curious corroboration to the contention, noticed by us elsewhere, of no less distinguished an expert than M. Jules Verne himself that novels and romances are destined to be superseded altogether by the daily newspaper. Personally we are old-fashioned enough to have the greatest ;horror of the dramatised reports of the police-court so much in vogue. However, Madame Humbert is no everyday product, but one of those epoch-making figures that emerge once in a century, like the flower of the aloe, whereas the industrious literary mystery-monger will turn you out a succession of stories almost as quickly as the indolent reviewer can read them.
It is, we think, tolerably clear from the foregoing remarks that in dealing with novels such as The Circular Study, the latest product of the author of The Leavenworth Case, it is as well to .leave all considerations of improbability out of the case. The question of morality does not obtrude itself, because as a matter of fact the writers of these stories are almost in- variably on the side of the angels; while the rapid succession of incident renders anything like careful character analysis or morbid introspection impossible. Reading a well-constructed " mystery " novel is more like playing a game, or watching a game being played, than anything else. One admires the agility, the resource, and the intelligence of the performer without taking into account any other qualities. There is no time to get attached to the dramatis personae, but one may be deeply engrossed in their performance. That, we take it, is the essential quality of these books,—that they should engross the reader. Therein lies their charm and their value. And to be truly engrossing they must avoid the imputation of ab- surdity. This danger we cannot think Miss Green has alto- gether evaded. To begin with, the assumption that a detec- tive should be capable of undertaking investigations into a murder case at the age of eighty—Mr. Gryce is more than once alluded to as an octogenarian—is a somewhat severe tax on the credulity of the reader. Again, the amiable rivalry between Mr. Gryce and the lady detective, Miss Butterworth, presupposes a laxity of organisation with which we can hardly credit the American Government. But the most serious blemish of all is the falsetto note that is sounded in the senti- mental passages. The account of the education of the sorely tried jeune premier, who is arrested on a charge of killing his brother, is almost worthy of Mr. Boothby. Young Thomas Adams, an Admirable Crichton at eighteen, is criticised by his father for his lack of social charm "He consequently moderated his manner, and daring the tollowing year acquired by constant association with the gilded youth about him that indescribable charm of the perfect gentle- man which he was led to believe would alone meet with the approval of those he now felt bound to please. At the end of the year he found himself a finished man of the world. How truly so, he began to realise when he noted the blush with which his presence was hailed by women and the respect shown him by men a his own stamp."
Such a passage entirely destroys any shred of sympathy which the reader may feel with Mr. Thomas Adams. Henceforth we contemplate his sufferings with equanimity, almost with apathy.
• Thd Circu■ar Snail:. By A. K. Gregg. London : Ward, Lock, and Co. [fia.]
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