The Holiday Adventures of Mr. P. J. Davenant. By Lord
Frederic Hamilton. (Eveleigh Nash. 2s. 6d. net.)—We have found it exceedingly difficult to determine to our satisfaction the relative proportions of fiction and fact in Lord Frederic Hamilton's four tales, all of which are concerned with the capture of German spies of singular ingenuity and ferocity, members of the "Kaiserliche Ueberseeische Wacht." They read a little like the stories which were told to us "on excellent authority" in the earlier months of the war; they happened, we suspect, to a friend of a friend of ours, who was some- thing at the War Office. Yet they are circumstantial and in some ways convincing. Especially are we puzzled by the case in which messages of importance were conveyed by the initial letters of the flower-pot labels in a conservatory of tulips, when the plot was only discovered because of the curious scheme of colour : this seems too improbable to be purely imaginative. At all events, here are capital adventures and a most up.to-date revival of the weary detective story ; and "P. J." is, judging by the writer's appreciation of him, and by the rather dishevelled portrait which does duty as frontis- piece, a most delightful young person.
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