Beyond the Law. By Gertrude Warden. (Ward, Lock, and Co
3s. 6d.)—This is a melodramatic book, and not at all a bad one of its kind. But we cannot help thinking the sudden relenting of the female villain at the end a little unnatural. True, the victim is her ci-devant husband, but, all the same, it is difficult to see why the lady should imperil the success of a plot for the sake of a man whose detection she has been trying to avoid for weeks. And also one cannot but imagine that the male villain would have triumphed in the struggle for the freedom of the victim. However, all this occurs at the end of the book, and is probably necessary to make the story end well. And before getting to this weak place the reader is led a tremendous dance through a series of the blackest crimes, both attempted and committed. We repeat,—this is a good book of its sort, though it must be confessed that the sort is getting rather distressingly familiar.
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