_Jinny the Carrier_ (HEINEMANN) was, as Mr. ZANGWILL lets us know in a felicitous epistle-dedicatory to an evidently charming lady, designed as a "bland" and leisurely book, free from any trace of war's horrors or modern perplexities, the sort you could read comfortably with a sore throat on you. I think if I had not been in such rude health I might have managed the five hundred and eighty odd close-set pages without getting just a little tired of his worthy Essex peasants of the time of the great Hyde Park Exhibition. _Jinny_ herself is a perfect darling, of real wit and character, and her business as the local carrier gives a plausible machinery for the introduction of an enormous number, a truly Dickensian profusion, of subsidiary characters. _Jinny_ indeed is above criticism, but the trouble with many, indeed with most, of the others, seemed to me to be their exaggerated sprightliness of speech, just a little too clever to be credible and not quite amusing enough to be palatable in large doses. To me the real pleasure of the book comes from the author's craftsmanlike use of words and the humour and imagination of his descriptions and asides. But if I may be humbly candid beyond the custom of my trade I must confess to an uncomfortable impression that sounder qualities in the reviewer would have discovered greater qualities in the work. * * * * * I rather suspect Mrs. GERTRUDE ATHERTON of having written _The Avalanche_ (MURRAY) either for the amusement of exercise in an unfamiliar medium, or, well, for any motive that might explain a production certainly not quite up to her own standard. Its publishers (who may be prejudiced) consider _The Avalanche_ as "a brilliant and engaging study of mystery and romance;" me it impressed as a melodrama dependent on one long-heralded sensation, which proves on tardy arrival an affair of disappointment. I suppose I must be careful not to give away the mystery, such as it is. _Price Rugler_ was anxious to discover why his attractive wife assumed a worried look when money was mentioned and fainted on being told that she was not to wear the family ruby at a particular masque. All this happened (you may not be astonished to hear) in San Francisco, amongst that luxurious, idle, over-moneyed society whose manners Mrs. ATHERTON knows and describes so well. _Price_ had already found out, with the assistance of a not too brilliant detective, that his wife's mother derived her income from a gambling saloon; the remaining problem was how to link up this knowledge with the odd behaviour of _Mrs. Price_. Perhaps you see it already. She had been--No, I said I wouldn't, and I won't. Of course the discovery couldn't be called cheerful, though it was fortunately made in time to prevent any great harm. But it was nothing like an avalanche. * * * * * [Illustration: UNRECORDED HISTORY.