Mr. HAROLD SPENDER'S new novel, _One Man Returns_ (MILLS AND BOON), opens with a very powerful and dramatic situation. Nothing in its way could be better than the description of the lonely _Trevena_ family, of their vigil during the terrible storm, of the shipwreck and the sudden arrival of the two strangers, father and son, who are its only survivors. The father dies immediately without revealing his identity, and the son, slowly nursed back to health by the devoted care of _Enid Trevena_, resumes his life without any consciousness of the past, having forgotten even his own name. As a matter of fact he is _Cyril Oswald_, the lawful inheritor of Oswald Hall and great estates, which, of course, pass into the possession of the nearest villain. This is _Major Harley_, a gentleman of a lurid past and an infamous present, mitigated only by the fact that he has a beautiful and amiable daughter, _Dorothy_, who, having been educated at Roedean School, conceives herself to be qualified to run after beagles. In the natural course of things she sprains her ankle and is beloved by _Rupert Sandford_, the chief beagler of the novel. She then quarrels with her disgraceful parent, is adopted by _Mrs. Sandford_ (mother to _Rupert_), and becomes the affianced bride of _Rupert_, though for a time she had been inclined to look with favour on _Cyril_. This young gentleman eventually recovers his estates by course of law and returns to Cornwall and _Enid_ just in time to cut out that young lady from under the guns of _Merrifield_, a South African millionaire who had complicated the situation by providing _Cyril_ with money for his law-suit. What happened to _Major Harley_ is not stated, but I presume he must have drunk off the phial of poison which such desperate adventurers always carry concealed about their persons. * * * * *