NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19505, 29 December 1928, Page 11

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

MORE ABOUT THE ML^tfAS. Discoveries and Adventures "tn Cantrri America. By Ttiomaa G*nn. Duckworth and Co. If you have already been to Central America with Dr. Qann you will be pleased to go again with him, but if this is your first voyage you will find him a little confusing. It is not merely that his later discoveries depend on earlier ones, and that he takes knowledge of the earlier ones for granted: he now takes conclusions for granted, and the consequences of those conclusions. On the other hand he never forgets that a book written for the public must be of interest to them. He remembers that archaeologists do not take the tram to their lost cities, or oven, as a rule, a motorcar, and that when they do got there life does not proceed on suburban lines. Even in Palestine and Egypt archeology can be adventurous, but in Central America it can never be tame. One continually finds entries like this: "I was rather sorry, on the second night at the ruins, that I had not brought any kind or firearm, as some animal of considerable sisse waß prowling around the outside of my tent in the early hours of tho morning,, possibly after a drove of quash, which I heard in the trees over my head before I went to sleep, but also possibly, as I could not help thinking in those nervous hours whioli precede the dawn, after me." And oven when there are no alarms from marauding animals, there are wettings, fevers, attacks of dysentery, falling trees, and crashing stones —the very stones sometimes tnat all these dangers liave been braved to reach —with occasionally, but not often, some anxiety from tho Indians. Dr. Gann has spent most of his life in Central America, and is well equipped therefore for meeting these troubles, but he still gets fever and still, in spite of all precautions, has adventures with venomous insects and snakes. There are, however, compensations even .in Honduras, for there, he tells us, the bees ore entirely stingless if the flies are not. MISS DELL AGAIN. The Gate Marked Private. By Stbel M. Dell. Cassell and Co. Roberta or "Bobby" Wendlholme has more strength of character than Miss Dell's usual type of emotional, unbalanced heroine. When the book opens she has rented a farm from Silas Hickory, a typical strong and silent Dell hero, and lives there with her semi-invalid sister and a beautiful young girl known as her nieoo. This girl is involved _ in all the secrets of Bobby's early life and causes her a good deal of trouble and worry. The charming villain of the piece—Miss Dell must have one—is "Dick Dynamo," once -Bobby's fianc6, now heir to a titlo and nearby estate; but although he still loves her, she gives her heart and hand to tho deserving Silas. (Through Whitcombe and Tombs.) HOW; A LABOURER EARNED HIS HIRE. Jim Baruett Intervenes. By Xtaarlce blanc. Mills and Boon. (London agents: Sands and MoDougaU. Jim Barnett was the sole brain Of "The Barnett Agency—lnformation Free," which operated in Paris. When Inspector Bechoux, of the Paris police, was puzzled about a crime, and in this book he is puzzled nine times, he called in Barnett, who invariably solved the mystery. The plot of each, story is unusual and ingenious and has an -unexpected solution. Though Barnett charged no fee, he always managed to reward himself well, the. humour of his method being the salt of each story. MANNERISMS, BY JEFFREY FARNOL. Gyfford of Weare. By Jeffrey Parnol. Samp* son, low, and Marston. Mr Farnol's costume romances have grown wearisome from laok of variety. The action of this new novel takes place in England soon,after the first Jacobite rebellion, a period in which the custom of using the second person singular had fallen into disuse, if it ever had any use outside Quaker circles. But Mr Farnol would not be happy unless his pages were peppered with "arts'" and "thees" ana. ft hundred other similar mannerisms. As usual the plot- contains the. misunderstood and maligned hero, the highspirited heroine, the mysterious murder which is solved in time to clear the hero, and a background of yokels, gypsies, and highwaymen. (Through Robertson and Mullens, Melbourne.)