Giant Circumstance. By John Oxenham. (Hodder and Stoughton. 6s.)—Beginning in
the Egyptian desert with the accidental killing of the last scion of a princely house who has volunteered for a British Nile expedition, this book concerns itself entirely with the fortunes of a young soldier, who is most unjustly blamed for not having saved the Prince in circumstances which were entirely beyond his own or any one else's control. The author, however, has thought it necessary about half-way through the story to reinstate his hero in men's good opinion, and the theme of the Nile expedition consequently becomes too thin to sustain the subsequent interest of the book. There is therefore a rather abrupt transition to a love story, which is really quite independent of the earlier motive. The second part of the novel is full of exciting adventures and not a little melodramatic in substance. Taken as a whole, the book is rather disconnected, but it is quite readable, although the figure of the hero, on whom the interest entirely depends, is a little conventional. The episode of the boys' evening club is well drawn, but is quite out of keeping with the rest of the novel, and therefore adds to the jerky effect spoken of above. The last chapter declines too much into melodrama to be even credible, and the kidnapping of the heroine is an episode which might very well have been left out. Whether in these cir- cumstances the interest of the book justifies the promise (or threat) of a sequel which is given by the author in the last sentence may be doubted. The characters are hardly sufficiently original or strongly drawn to make it worth while to follow them once more in a second set of adventures. Any other two figures set up by the author would do just as well for hero and heroine, and a sequel can only be justified by the personages of the drama being such notable creations that something more than their mere names can be carried on into a second volume.
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