FROM NINE TO NINE. By Leo Perutz. Translated Lily Lore.
(Lane. 7s. 6d.)This is an exceptionally ele and original book, translated from the German. The is laid in Vienna, and the action, of which there is a great d takes place within twelve hours. Stanislaus Demba, brilliant but unbalanced scholar, steals a valuable book fro library. He is arrested, but escapes with his hands manael He is in urgent need of money, as his fiancée threatens toles at once for Italy with another suitor unless Demba h will take her. Demba, therefore, spends the twelve hours feverish attempts to raise the necessary funds, but is frusta in every case by his inability to pick up the money and by `necessity of hiding his handcuffs beneath his cape. Fr . he is betrayed by the girl-twhom he imagined himself to to . and dies immediately after being rearrested. The style the novel is as fresh as its theme. Each chapter might al be described as a complete and highly finished short sto yet the connecting interest never flags. We arc ea breathlessly- from one- ingenious situation- to the next, - while' the book htia all the sensational attraction. of 11 a - class " thriller," it abmindi in goOd eharacterization. ,gives us a wonderfully yaried series of glimpses- into A le interiors. , - _ . - : .
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