In the Moment of Victory. By C. L. Pirkis. 3
vols. (Ward and Downey.)—Sir Peter Critchett, a fairly amusing busybody, takes into his house a foreign-looking young lady who has been stranded in the neighbourhood by the wrecking of a railway-train. When we have her described as standing "tall and shadowy in her gray garments," with a complexion " of a dead unvarying white doubly accentuated, first by coral-red lips, next by black, straight bars—not arches—of eyebrows, drawn straight across her forehead," and hear that her name is " Jane Shore," we feel sure that we are in for a tragedy, the tragedy, of course, having some- thing to do with an attempt at poisoning of which Miss Pirkis is obliging enough to give us a glimpse in the " Prologue." The other dramatis persons are Lancelot Clive, reputed heir to Sir Peter, in love with Jane Shore; Madge Cohen, a wealthy young widow, in love with Lancelot; a secretary who plots and swindles on his own account ; and an Italian Count who lives up to the very largest traditions of villainy reputed to be current in his order. And all through this tragedy runs a thread of farce, furnished by the restless Sir Peter and his deaf, ill-tempered wife. Madge Cohen gets rid of her rival by showing her, in the midst of the festivities of a ball, a picture of her attempt to poison the villainous Count, about which the swindling secretary seems to be curiously well informed. Finally, the mysterious poisoner, whom we find to have been more sinned against than sinning, is discovered somewhere on the Welsh coast in a way that is a trifle more improbable than the rest of the story; and the whole ends with fussy telegrams from Sir Peter to Mr. and Mrs. Lancelot Clive. Is there any need to criticise further such a story as this ?
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