The Lust of Hate

"In this the third of Boothby's Dr. Nikola novels, Nikola applies his almost hypnotic persuasion to convince an out-of-luck Australian, formerly from England, named Gilbert Pennethorne to assist Nikola unwittingly in an evil scheme. Nikola takes advantage of Pennethorne's intense desire for revenge against a former boss in Australia who stole information about the location of a gold field that would have made Pennethorne immensely wealthy.

"Using that information the boss made himself rich, living a high life in London, while Pennethorne remained penniless. Nikola contrives a plan and a device for Pennethorne to commit the perfect murder of the wealthy thief. Unknowingly, Pennethorne thus becomes a party to another one of Nikola's insidious schemes."[1]

Following the book's initial newspaper serialisation, and then publication by Ward, Lock and Bowden in 1898[2] it was subsequently published as follows:[1]

• Appleton, 1898, USA[3]

The novel was translated into Danish (1916).[1]

A reviewer in the Australian Town and Country Journal noted that the book "will certainly not rank among the best of his works, being indeed of an obviously pot-boiler type–even shipwrecks, gold rushes, and attacks by Matabele are apt to pall, and excursions from England to Australia and back again, and thence to South Africa, provide a species of variety which may become simply monotonous." They concluded that the "various improbable coincidences assist in giving the whole book an air of unreality."[4]

The reviewer in the Sydney Mail agreed: "though as chock full of adventure as previous volumes — much more so, in fact — does not mark any advance in his art, and is certainly not up to the standard of Dr. Nikola."[5]

• 1897 in Australian literature