The modern novel of sex and cocktails grafted on to the old-fashioned Irish tale of foxhunting and country-house life is a curious combination. That, however, is a not unfair description of [Taking Chances]…. Miss Farrell has, it appears, determined to go a little deeper and to attack more important problems than in her previous light hearted books. In this there is a vein of tragedy all through, and the end is tragedy unadulterated. On the whole she has been successful. Her personages, with one exception, are perhaps only types, but they are true types. Her machinery is excellent, and the sporting and humorous accessories as good as before. Yet there is something unpleasant, not in her subject, but in her handling of it—a treatment of the sensual which becomes sickly after a while. And how tiresome the girls' oaths and slang, quite genuine though they be, their...