Mr. Justice Maxell follows the story of two business partners, Maxell and Cartwright, one of whom becomes a judge and sentences the other to prison, the woman they both marry, and their respective cousins whom they take on as their own wards. Spanning roughly a decade, the plot hinges on multiple coincidences involving mutual acquaintances meeting one another at critical points on different continents, and maintains much of its suspense by instilling most of its main characters with shady backgrounds and dubious motivations. Any suspense achieved (mostly through factual omission) is spread thin between lengthy character-driven chapters that feel more like a soap opera than a suspense novel. Not a bad book, but a somewhat dry read without much of a payoff. ( )

Maxell, a very capable K.C., is promoted to be a Superior Cour Judge and therefore ends his association with a rather dubious company promoter named Cartwright, who has just married (under an assumed name) and is engaged in a promotion of a company whose prospectus claims it owns a potentially valuable gold mine which, in fact, he does not own. and finds difficulty in purchasing from another equally dubious promoter. ( )