An absorbing detective story of modern New York, especially original in its plot and the fact that a young lawyer does the detective work; the conclusion is most surprising.
"The author has stepped at once to the front ranks among American writers of detective tales ... a yarn with genuine thrills," (and comparing it with some of the most popular detective stories) "the English is better and cleaner cut, the love passages are never maudlin, there is throughout more dignity and sense, and the book shows a far wider knowledge of the logical technique of detective fiction."—Bookman.
N. Y. Sun: "Distinctly an interesting story—one of the sort that the reader will not lay down before he goes to bed."
N. Y. Post: "By comparison with the work of Anna Katharine Green ... it is exceptionally clever ... told interestingly and well."
N. Y. Tribune: "The Holladay Case was a capital story of crime and mystery. In the Marathon Mystery the author is in even firmer command of the trick. He is skillful in keeping his reader in suspense, and every element in it is cunningly adjusted to preserving the mystery inviolate until the end."
Boston Transcript: "The excellence of its style, Mr. Stevenson apparently knowing well the dramatic effect of fluency and brevity, and the rationality of avoiding false clues and attempts unduly to mystify his readers."
Boston Herald: "This is something more than an ordinary detective story. It thrills you and holds your attention to the end. But besides all this the characters are really well drawn and your interest in the plot is enhanced by interest in the people who play their parts therein."
Town and Country: "The mystery defies solution until the end. The final catastrophe is worked out in a highly dramatic manner."