Up to the present time the crop of German spy-stories has been
distinguished by quantity rather than by quality. Possibly the
authors, realising that the wildest flights of their highly-trained
fancies could never match the actual machinations of the German Secret
Service as revealed in the official news, have not put their hearts
into the work. In _The Lost Naval Papers_ and other stories (MURRAY)
Mr. BENNET COPPLESTONE has shown unusual boldness in connecting the
activities of his super-policeman, _Dawson_, with the more prominent
events of the War. Indeed, I am not sure that the terror he professes
to feel in the presence of the Scotland Yard official (for he tells
his stories _in propria persona_) is not to some extent justified.
"Dora" is very sensitive and six months ago would never have permitted
Mr. COPPLESTONE to reveal to our enemies either the bumptious egoism
of a nameless First Lord or the platitudinous vacillations of an
anonymous Premier, even in the interests of popular fiction. Though
we concede his audacity in allowing his superlative sleuth to stop a
general strike of engineers by threatening them with martial law and
to tempt the German fleet to come out by sending it false news of our
battleship strength, or to enable the battle of the Falkland Islands
to be won by piling dummy battle cruisers up outside Plymouth harbour,
the merit of Mr. COPPLESTONE'S book does not lie in the complexity or
vitality of his plots. It lies in a keen sense of humour and clever
character suggestion, and the recognition that the thing written about
is of less importance than the manner of writing. We earnestly desire
that Mr. COPPLESTONE should devote another volume--a whole one--to the
inimitable _Madame Guilbert_; but whatever he writes about will be
welcome, provided it be written in the vein of the volume before us.

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