NEW NOVELS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21975, 26 December 1936, Page 13

NEW NOVELS

STORIES OF GREECE AND ROME Come Home at Last. By Jack Lindsay. Ivor Nicholson and Watson. 384 pp. Through Whitcomhe and Tombs Ltd. ’Mr Jack Lindsay’s previous books have been full length novels with a historical background. In this volume of short stories, for the setting of which he has gone back to ancient Greece and Rome, he has shown himself to be a good craftsman in this difficult medium. The characterisation in all the stories is skilfully done and he has managed to create an atmosphere of reality by drawing on the knowledge he has gained in studious research. The title story is well chosen. It is a splendid sketch of a beautiful, selfish, spoilt, and wilful woman, for whose guile the straight-thinking of her simpleminded husband is no 1 match. “Loyalty” is another fine sketch, in which character and motive are subtly played upon. Mr Lindsay is a master of shock and surprise and writes with rare artistry. DREAM AND REALITY Break of Day, By Tristam Beresford. Macmillan. 273 pp. The quality of this first novel is in the dreamily romantic atmosphere that envelops the story, Carol Blythe, whose nature is at once romantic and curiously introspective, meets fleetingly, at a children s party and in his extreme youth, a beautiful little girl; and there romance begins for him. The little girl, Imogen, is not seen again in adolescence, but Carol, as ho grows to manhood, builds of her an image that is his own likeness. His dreams take no account of reality; he feels sure that, when ho meets Imogen again, she will know him as ho will know her and that they can find at once that intimacy for which his dreams are the only foundation. But the Imogen he meets is superficially a most practical young woman, and the shock to Carol nearly ends the romance. A pleasant story, imaginatively written. GOLF LINKS MURDER Death off the Fairways. By Herbert Adams. Collins, 283 pp. Mr Adams likes his gruesome discoveries to be made on or near golf courses. A happy mixed foursome is rudely interrupted by one of the players finding a body in a stream. All the indications point to suicide; but Robert Bqnnion, discoverer of the corpse, has one of those enquiring minds that are not satisfied with superficial evidence. A series of little unnoticed things do not coincide with the accepted suicide theory and lead eventually to the discovery of the murderer. But a few games of golf have to be played first. The plot is ingenious and most readers will be puzzled to pick the murderer out of a likely array of suspects. CRIME GANG LEADER Crime and a Clock. By Whyte Hall. George G. Harrap and Co., Ltd. 283 pp. The puzzle is to identify the mysterious Mr Marx, leader of a gang of desperate criminals, whose unpunished activities are turning Scotland Yard and the Department of Justice into unhappy victims of the yellow press. A retired detective with a complex about a dock, his beautiful daughter and her suitors, and many unpleasant characters in high places and in low enter into the story, which is rather too disconnected and far-fetched. FUN IN HOLLYWOOD Laughing Gas. By P. G. Wodchousc. Herbert Jenkins Ltd. 311 pp. Mr Wodehouse’s time has not been wasted in Hollywood. The laughing gas is the dentist’s ether that gives the fourth dimension a puckish chance to operate and provides a temporary home for the personality of Joey Cooley, a precocious child star, in the body of Reginald, third Earl of Havershot, and vice versa. The fun is fast and furious in the best Wodehouse manner. MEDIEVAL FRANCE Proud Paladin. By Iris Morley. Peter Davies and Lovat Dickson. 319 pp. Miss Morley has recaptflred the romantic flavour of Dumas and Scott and has written a most entertaining and vivid semi-historical novel. The proud paladin Is an Imaginary character, the Lady Melior, Duchess ‘of Maubuisson, proud, beautiful, Strong, skilled beyond the prowess even of the most valiant knights of her day in the use of arms. The author has created many vital Characters and gives a swing and vivid movement to an enthralling story of a woman’s glory and ultimate failure to compete in a manmade world with weapons forged for men. AMERICAN ROMANCE A Pageant of Victory. By Jeffrey Farnol. Samscn Low, Marstan and Co. Ltd. 3?8 pp. Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. All the figures that Mr Farnol has created in earlier novels reappear in different guise in this pleasant story. Women, beautiful, and proud, tender, yielding, according to circumstance; young men, stern, impetuous, and proud also, and some times gay enough, with a core of gentleness and chivalry; lovable old men who can rise nobly to a last desperate occasion—all are here, and Mr Farnol, tale-teller extraordinary, has readjusted them to a splendid hew setting arid told another story to delight romantic hearts. ' BORN IN LUXURY Too Much of Everything. By rhilin Wylie. Chapman and Hkll. 334 pp. If there is a serious fault with this story it is that sentiment is laid oh rather thickly, William Bentlan, Inulti-millionaire at the age of 44, js ruined in a Wall Street crash. Preoccupied with business he has grown away from his family, who regard hifn as a sort of automatic universalprovider and are suffering the disintegration that corhes of having “tOb rhUch of everything,” Reduction to comparative poverty shocks the family to its foundations; but it also awakens Bentlan to the human needs of his family and in the end brihgs happiness to all concerned. A jarring note is Behtlan’s impossible wife, whom no one could cohceive Sentlart’s marrying, intelligent and vital as he is.