10 MAY 1930, Page 26

. I AM JONATHAN SCRIVENER. By Claude Houghton. (Thornton Butterworth.

7s. 6d.)—By an excellent device , the principal character and the most arresting one in this book does not appear in it at all. He merely, for his own queer ends, causes certain of his acquaintances to meet each other under odd circumstances, and with his knowledge Of their characters, leaves the rest to chance. Strange relation- ships are created among them, none stranger than the one , which each individual holds in regard to the elusive Scrivener himself. The stay is told in somewhat stilted fashion, and those who like an author to finish off all the ends of a tale will ' be annoyed : but one remembers this book vividly and speculates- about - -