Mr Gibbs already has half a score of successful novels to his credit but it is safe to say that his latest tale will surpass all its predecessors in popularity The Secret Witness is a typical up-to-date “best seller;” it has every quality that goes to make a successful story, with the added interest of a theme so timely that there is no resisting its appeal. With a good deal of daring the author has taken for the foundation of his tale the now historic catastrophe of the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand–a tragedy for which Mr. Gibbs has his own original and unique explanation. But this he carries off with perfect plausibility, so that one has the sense of reading fact and not fiction. By this bold stroke he draws his readers into the very heart of the intrigues which prefaced the opening of the World War, and by an equally daring invention he makes the denouement of his story hinge on the War’s action. –New Catholic World, 1918
