The King's Agent. By Arthur Paterson. (W. Heinemann. es.) — The
King's Agent is an historical novel dealing with a sham plot for the restoration of James II. concocted by Robert Young in 1692, a plot into which the name of the Duke of Marlborough was dragged by forgery. The book begins and ends well, but like most stories which depend for their interest almost entirely upon action, it is dull in the middle. The heroine and the man she marries are mere bundles of virtues. The hero, who is also the villain, has some good points, which serve to break the monotony of his somewhat commonplace wickedness. Mr. Paterson is at his best in his fifth chapter, which is so good as to make most of its thirty-three successors disappointing. In it all the chief persons in the book are brought together and all reveal them- selves to the reader, the dialogue is terse and unexpected, and the figure of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, round which the chapter is written, is lifelike and striking.
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