The Queen of the Black Rand. By Hugh Coleman Davidson.
(Trischler and Co.)—This is a talc of Spain and Secret Societies, and for a fiction which is not written with the intention of producing any great effect, there is a great deal of descriptive power, of character, and lifelike Spanish colouring. The Spanish characters have a very good local colouring indeed—better, perhaps, than their English contemporaries—but this, of course, may be of purpose. The plot is a decidedly good one, if it is slightly melodramatic ; there is plenty of real dramatic intensity, and a certain probability about it that makes it interesting from beginning to end. Estrella is a somewhat unusual character, but a well-defined and thoroughly Spanish one, and so is her old servant. The general background of the story has plenty of life about it, just sufficiently accentuated to emphasise the naturalness of the characters without permitting them to become too lurid and sensational.
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