PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT.

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 151, 30 June 1928, Page 21

PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT.

"The Light Beyond." By Mr. E. Phillips Oppenheim. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Mark Van Stratten, an attractive, but rich and idle young American, is lunching with two friends at .the 'Ritz when Estelle Dukane enters with her father, a wizard of finance, who controls half the small nations of Europe. Mark at once falls in love with the beautiful girl, but, having been introduced and taking an increasing interest in Bstelle, he has rather a shock when ho is calmly asked in her behalf to disposo of a corpse, tho result of an error of judgment in her father's use of a heavy cane. There are further complications, because one of Mark's firmest friends is Eaoul TTontenay, a member of the French Secret Service, and it transpires that Dukane is plotting a campaign on the stability of the franc. The man Mark takes to the park and leaves leaning against a tree, revives in tho cold air, and introduces further mysteries, as'he proves to be an international spy, wtih information worth millions to the right people. Ho makes Mark the heir to his secret, and when the latter joins the American diplomatic service he has a busy time, but through it all he finds time to make fervent love, to Estelle, in the ■. caf o and salon sotting Mr. Oppenheim . knows so, well how to set before his readers. Startling events intervene before .Mark smashes Dukano's plots, but the sequel as regards Estelle should be read-