THE CONSUL'S WIFE

A story of an uprising in a Sikh province of India, before the British withdrawal and of the part played in it by the Leightons, he the American consul, and Ilka, the consul's wife, a lovely Hungarian. Leighton was close to the point of recall, ill of malaria, troubled by the revolt of the natives which he felt could have been avoided by the British Resident, disturbed over his teen age daughter's passionate determination to stay in Pawancore and marry a glamorous Sikh lawyer, and above all, worried over the charges levied that his beloved wife is affiliated with the revolutionists. In the few days covered by the story, the rebellion comes to bloody conclusion, Leighton's efforts to stem the violence fail — and Ilka's finds herself helplessly enmeshed in the plot to murder the British Governor. Lord Stanhops. The sensational plot is acted out against the setting of a , unhappy, tropical land, but the characters are puppets, and the plot seems synthetic, contrived. Shirer's gifts lie more in the realm of reporting than creative writing, and the book carries none of the assured tone of the professional novelist.