THE MOTIVES OF NICHOLAS HOLTZ

being the weird tale of the Ironville virus. By Thomas Painter and Alexander Laing '25. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1936.

This new mystery-novel by the authors of "The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck" is even more thrilling and horrific than its predecessor. Alexander Laing's collaborator "Thomas Painter" is not a mythical personage but a Dartmouth alumnus who wishes to remain incognito. The preface of this book intimates that in their partnership Mr. "Painter" furnishes the scientific knowledge and Mr. Laing the fictional craft. Most readers will probably feel well satisfied with the results of the collaboration. "The Motives of Nicholas Holtz" is an extremely blood-curdling and yet curiously plausible tale of terror, pestilence, and wholesale homicide. It all happens because the character, Tommy Howerth, a modernized Frankenstein, creates in his laboratory a new virus which causes an epidemic disease deadlier and swifter than the Black Plague. The main stock of this virus falls into the hands of Nicholas Holtz, a sinister tycoon, whose principal motive seems to be a murderous contempt for the proletariat. Several villages are wiped out by sudden epidemics; and thereafter we are kept in suspense while Howerth toils night and day to discover an effective antitoxin before Holtz can kill all the poor people in Pennsylvania.