The Secret of Wold Hall

IN England, Miss Evelyn Everett-Green is considered one of the cleverest of the younger writers of mystery tales. In this book, which is her first to be offered to an American audience, one finds nothing of unusual power or brilliancy, albeit one confesses to an interest that must be excused on the plea that the author has constructive ability and that she writes with a strength of feeling that demands its response.
With only the average material of the average novelist, Miss Everett-Green puts together a story in which the secret of a man’s identity is made a real mystery, one that excites speculation and invites eagerness for solution and in which, too, there is a wealth of healthy sentiment, a pretty romance and the exercise of a certain sweet, sprightly fancy which, towards the close of the story, especially, makes most appreciable reading.
A man apparently leads a dual life; he marries the woman he loves but who does not love him-merely accepting him to save her family from financial ruin. She seems to ask him for the explanation of the rumors that come to her ear, though she has his own word for it that he can and will explain if only she will make the request. Then comes a moment of great danger to the man and the woman’s heart knows the love that has been developing. The explanation follows, naturally.
Melodrama is in the tale, but the author contrives to keep it in leash, and one has chiefly pleasant recollections of the book after it has been laid aside.For instance, in this book, it was necessary for him to know the methods of the French police system and the civil service system of Germany -- he knows them and spares no details in portraying them. His plot has its weaknesses, but one remembers that this is only a fairy-tale after all, and what matters it if every situation cannot be analyzed in the light of realities.
A rather stupid young Englishman witnesses, by chance, a secret meeting of the Czar of Russia and the Emperor of Germany. He furthermore picks up a loose sheet of the treaty that is drawn up and, not knowing the import of the scene that he has observed, talks about it. This results in his sudden and mysterious disappearance in Paris, followed by the disappearance of his sister, who goes to France in search of him and tracks him to the Cafe Montmartre. Then ensues a series of peculiar adventures in which the sister plays a prominent part; the supposed hero is kept in the background -- for reasons that we need not go far to seek. It all ends in a newspaper “coup” -- with divers murders, poisonings and fake deaths in between. Reading it will keep you awake -- it would be rash to promise more.
--The Book News Monthly, Volume 24 [1906]