There is a great falling off in quality as between _The Pointing Man_ and the anonymous authoress's latest effort, _The Man Who Tried Everything_ (HUTCHINSON), a fact which may be partly accounted for by the brief time elapsing between its appearance and that of its immediate forerunner, _The Man from Trinidad_. Her new book is a war spy story--an exacting form of fiction in any event--and deals with German revolutionary machinations in the Orient. It fails because it moves too rapidly and covers far too much ground. The writer has neither the gift nor the general information necessary for this class of adventurous fiction. Her genius lies in her power of reproducing the atmosphere of crime and intrigue; but her Orient and her Orientals seem to have lost their hold on the reader's imagination. And I venture to remind her that it is fatal in this kind of story to replace known facts by unnecessary fiction; for example, to speak, as she does, of a German warship in the Indian Ocean as the _Blücher_, when all the world knows that that particular vessel was elsewhere. It will be easily understood that she gives us a hero who wins his heart's desire, and numerous plotters of various nationalities who are all safely foiled, the entire romance being conducted with a ladylike absence of the bloodshed that usually accompanies this class of fiction. That is its best recommendation. * * * * * The fact that _The Pearl_ (BLACKWELL) is described in its sub-title as "A Story of School and Oxford Life," may perhaps somewhat mislead you. Let me therefore hasten to explain that the school is for girls, and the Oxford life is that enjoyed by wearers of whatever may be the modern substitute for skirts. Not too immediately modern indeed, as the events fall within the period of the South African war, a fact that will, of course, much increase their appeal for those whose Oxford memories belong to the same epoch. But it is naturally a book difficult for the male reviewer to appraise with exactitude. All I can say, being unconversant with the domestic politics of a ladies' college, is that I should imagine Miss WINIFRED TAYLOR to have given a remarkably true picture of existence therein; its mixture of academic ambition, sentiment, religious fervour and party spirit seems (as was to be expected) pretty much as we knew it in the masculine camp. The chief point of difference appears to be that Miss TAYLOR'S heroine, _Janet_, and her friends (all pleasantly individual) are naturally thrown a good deal more upon themselves than is the case with their more fortunate brothers. I have no doubt of the book's success. Girl-graduates, past, present and to come, will of course buy it; while in that other Oxford, now so happily re-awakening, I can fancy it being read with all the curiosity that naturally attaches to revelations of the unknown land. * * * * *