BOOKS REVIEWED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 63, 26 December 1935, Page 3

BOOKS REVIEWED

THE “LITTLE COLONEL” STORIES A POPULAR! HEROINE. Shirley Temple as “the little Colonel” lias popularised the screen presentation of Annie Fellows Johnston’s heroine, and the story of the little Kentucky girl, published by Angus and Robertson, Ltd., under the title of “The Little Colonel Stories,” is sure to be received with a quick demand. The manner in which the erascible old colonel is reconciled to his daughter and her husband is related in a charming style, humour and pathos being skilfully blended. In the “Giant Scissors,” one of the stories included in the book the finding of a long-lost daughter is the theme, this happy denouement being brought about through the instrumentality of a little girl for a neglected boy. The third story also concerns the unity of brothers, two “little Knights of Kentucky being the chief actors. But though there is a similarity in the general themes of the three story the treatment is so diverse that if anything the interest grows with each successive one. The stories will be as popular among older readers as among those younger ones to whom they have special appeal. A HORLER THRILLER. Sydney Horler can always be relied upon to provide plenty of excitement in his books, and “The Mystery of the Seven Cafes” is no exception. The story tells of the adventures of a British secret service agent who has to, follow up a clue supplied in the words “Seven cities . . . seven places . . . -even cafes . . seven faces .. . seven letters,”" uttered by a dying man. The victim of the outrage was an Oxford graduate who deemed it his mission to investigate Communism and other revolutionary movements in order to fit himself to work for the people in Parliament. By accident he discovers that his “comrades” were using him as a personal courier for one of the greatest criminal organisations the world has ever known. He set himself to expose their villainy, but met his death. Then his friend in the secret service came on the scene and before the gang was broken up he experienced peril and hairbreadths escapes in Paris, Warsaw, Moscow, Budapest, Vienna, Rome and Monte Carlo. Incorporated in the book is a shorter story, “Sportsmen’s Spoils,” telling how a plot to disable a “dark horse” for the Derby was foiled. The publishers of this double book are Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd. “THE PROSELYTE.” Susan Ertz’s famous pioneer novel, “The Proselyte,” has been reproduced in a cheap edition by Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., and the story of Mormon life should thus become even more widely known than it is to-day. “Tho Proselyte” tells of a Gentile girl who married a Mormon 'missionary, and leaves England with him to go to Salt Lake City. The story is of absorbing interest from start to finish. The bitterness that was engendered against the new sect when it first made contact with Britain, the trials and tribulations of the migrants across the Atlantic, and above all the courage and selfsacrifice displayed by the disciples in the great hand-cart trek are told with a graphic pen. The conditions and circumstances of life are historically correct, but the fortunes ot the heroine are none the less exciting. The motive of the story rests on plurality of wives, introducing a romance that of itself is most interesting.