GIBBS, GEORGE FORT. Splendid outcast. il *$2 (2c) Appleton
20–2258
In the midst of a battle Jim Horton finds his twin brother Harry, an officer with responsibility, crouching behind the lines in a “blue funk,” desperately afraid to obey his major’s orders, Jim compels Harry to change uniforms with him, takes Harry’s place, and so splendidly performs his brother’s duty that he gains for him the croix de guerre. Incidentally, Jim is seriously wounded. Recovering in the hospital he finds himself in a strange dilemma. No one believes his story. At last he grimly resolves to see the game through. This is difficult, as Harry is a dissolute crook engaged in some shady undertakings, and Jim is all that a true gentleman ought to be. Furthermore there is Harry’s beautiful bride to add more perplexing complications. Around this situation evolves a tense story, running through the underworld of Paris. In the end Jim, upon the death of his worthless brother, marries the beautiful Moira, whose marriage to Harry had been forced upon her, and who loves Jim beyond question.
“It is undeniably a dramatic story that Mr Gibbs tells. In spite of the transparent confusion of identities, he manages to keep us genuinely guessing at least part of the time.”
+ − Boston Transcript p7 Ap 28 ’20 320w
“If the characters were any of them real people the probabilities of the plot would not matter so much, but they are merely the stereotyped figures who have appeared in dozens of tales of this order, and they rather detract than add to the book’s credibility.”
− + N Y Times 25:91 F 15 ’20 420w
“The book would make a tremendous movie. The moves of the detective-like story are too intricate, the action too violent, the scenes too realistic to be overlooked in this field. It is a book for tired brains and jaded moments.” Katharine Oliver
+ Pub W 97:175 Ja 17 ’20 300w