“The tale is one of adventure and courage, and the character of the Chinese boy is unusual and decidedly interesting.”
+ Outlook 126:238 O 6 ’20 50w The Times [London] Lit Sup p653 O 7 ’20 80w
WEAVER, GERTRUDE (RENTON) (MRS HAROLD BAILLIE WEAVER) (G. COLMORE, pseud.). Thunderbolt. *$1.90 Seltzer
20–7061
“Mrs Bonham takes her engaged daughter for a trip on the continent. In Germany Dorrie injures a foot and is sent with her French maid to Professor Reisen, a famous clinician with whom Mrs Bonham has become acquainted. Instead of taking the girl to the doctor’s private office, the blundering maid takes her to a clinic conducted by Dr Reisen for experimental purposes. Shortly after this a suspicious sore appears on Dorrie’s arm, followed by a similar one on her lip. Alarmed by the sores, Mrs Bonham takes her daughter to a specialist in Paris, and is filled with horror when she learns the name of the disease with which Dorrie was inoculated in Dr Reisen’s clinic. Back in England Mrs Bonham tells Dorrie’s fiancé what has happened. The young man promptly ends the engagement. Dorrie does not learn of her lover’s defection and is kept ignorant of her disease. The old nurse, who has been sent for, realizes the truth of Dorrie’s statement that it would kill her if her fiancé stopped loving her. She determines that Dorrie must never learn the truth, and, by a noble and tragic sacrifice, keeps it from her.”—N Y Times
Dial 69:210 Ag ’20 80w
“This sorry fable is quite devoid of the melodramatic ‘punch,’ the thrill of spurious horror which was, obviously, its one attainable merit. Honestly written, it would have been a rattling shilling shocker. Aping the sober garb and earnest manners of a modern novel, it has succeeded in being hailed—for various reasons—as a masterpiece.”
− Nation 110:772 Je 5 ’20 280w
“‘The thunderbolt’ has all the exquisite artistry of Swinnerton at his best, and a realism as ultimate and magic as Leonard Merrick’s. It is hard to overpraise this book, and you are unfair to yourself if you do not acquaint yourself with it.” Clement Wood