The Riddle of the Sands

ERSKINE CHILDERS was shot in 1922 by a firing squad ot the Irish Free State army. The Riddle of the Sands, a tale of Anglo-German international spying, was first published in 1903. What resurrects it now is the circumstance that the mystery unraveled by two young British yachtsmen is a German scheme to launch a surprise invasion of England in a vast armada of barges and lighters to be dispatched simultaneously from a series of obscure Friesland ports from which deep-draught vessels could not operate. On its merits it can be recommended enthusiastically to readers who are fascinated by the intricacies of small-boat navigation under sail in cramped and dangerous waters. Other readers are likely to find it overloaded with detail. In style and general modus operandi it will remind many of the well-written thrillers concocted a little earlier by Robert Louis Stevenson.