5 JUNE 1926, Page 26

Mr. Allen. By Horace Annesley Vachell and Archibald Maishalk (Hodder

_ and StOughtiii: 7e. 6d. net.)—It is decidedly amusing to try to disentangle the secrets of the dual authorship of this book. The ingenious reader will find few traces, how_mier, of the idyll of the country-house so often and so delightfully depicted by, Mr. Archibald Marshall, the Whole tone of the book being a' great deal nearer to that section of Mr. Vachell's honks of which Quitiney's is a gbod speci- men. The story isPerhapS a little thin for the Combination of so much talent ; but the accounts of the ingenious attempt at murder by means of-gerink are certainly exciting.