NEW NOVELS

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22823, 23 September 1939, Page 16

NEW NOVELS

BOUND TO MURDER To Kill Is My Vocation. By Peter . Matin. Cassell. 278 pp. Mr Malin’s story falls in- that comparatively new class of crime stories, in which the reader is taken within the killer’s mind and allowed to see, with that sympathetic advantage, how strongly a humane nature may be worked upon ana perverted, until murder is a result, rather than a heinous offence. Mr Malin depicts in this way the life of Stephen Cole, unhappy at home, tormented in his employment; the end Of his torture is murder, but without escape. Stephen substitutes for one unendurable state another as horrible; and he is relieved 'from it—this is Mr Malm s cruellest stroke—only by the sentence that makes him/ pay the penalty of a crime he did not cqmmit. THE PRINCESS Royal Highness. By Gideon Clark. Rich and Cowan. 380 pp. (10/--) Through Whltcombe and Tombs Ltd. The last sentence of Mr Clark’s novel shows the end, in sacrifice and devotion, .to which he has shaped his study of the Princess Cristina: “She forced a smile to her lips and went forward to meet her bridegroom.” Revolution in the Kingdom of Yicula seemed to release the Princess from the obligations of blood and State: she reached womanhood in a freedom of experience and. purpose that promised her full happiness. But she was not born of a line of kings without inheriting a sense of duty and pride of country; and when they were called upon, they ruled her decision. ■ Mr Clark’s story is romantic but does not belong to the world of fantasy. Vicula, its royal family, its people, its problems, are of the real world, and the world to-day. MR MOTO AGAIN Mr Moto Is So Sorry. By John P. Marquand. Robert Hale. 288 pp. Through Whltcombe and Tombs Ltd. Mr Moto, Peter Lorre, and John P. Marquand have become very well known in recent years; Mr Moto because he is such an attractive detective, Peter Lorre because he plays the character so well in films, and John P. Marquand because he invents such excellent quiet phrases and rapid actions to give his hero . life. This is the latest book in a very readable series. Mr Moto becomes a member of the Japanese secret service, seeking a code that i$ meant for the Russian army. An American young man and an American young woman are interrupted on their journeys through northern China to serve Mr Moto’s very

urgent demands. Their preseno|-;# helps also with the romantic est of a story to be relished at | sitting. , LONG LIVE FU MANCHU »4|| The Drums of Fu Mmcbn. By Rohmer. Cassell. 312 pp. Through *|| Whltcombe and Tombs Ltd. ■This is a new episode in the longji campaign between Fu Manchu,'*| most sinister and elusive of Ori-.l ental schemers, and Nayland Smith, fa his permanent, determine ful opposite number. “Merciful,’! heaven!” whispers Smith’s ate, “You escaped death by a frazil tion of a second!” “Yes, agrees Mi Nonchalant Smith, “Ericksen’s RaylJs The thing with the red eyes . . . , n jm But no more of that. Enough to sayll that reading this story is to lookS| death in the eye, just like that, and over again, and enjoy it. • lS|| PINK THRILLS g|| The Strelsen Castle Mystery. By Hal ; :'S Pink. Hutchinson. 256 pp. Throuftea Whltcombe and Tombs Ltd. . When Lancelot Bertram from a bad fall in a run, his good friends Goodchild rapil Bill Revel decided that he need«ife|p|| pick-me-up holiday: “Zovania--H^||: to Zovania,” was their cry. And vania is rather like Mr Yates’s CaMpl inthia . . . especially in providing adventure to describe, in like this; . There were moments when of my two friends, my servant myself hung by the merest while she whom I look upon as ißgjMl loveliest of all women faced wewSjjr than death. FORMERLY ANNE. SHIRLBY^S Anne of By L M. cry. George G. ilarrap and Cfeyl. ; Ltd. , 342 pp. - ■' No reader of Mrs Montgoraer|frl| novels needs to be reminded IvcdSl Anne Shirley. Here she reappqtpg as Anne Blythe, wife of the side doctor, mother of an ypung family, and herself chaqniflgs as ever, with new depths of ter developed. This is a househcjcHll story, and will have household pop^g WILD WEST : | (I) The Shoutin' Sheriff. By Clem \ Colt, (ii) Bustlers’ Moon. By Wt|( | Ermine, (fit) Pinto Blood. '» Clay Starr. Nicholson and W»is*B Ltd. (3/6 net each.) ;i= These are three new titles ih ff now well established series of WjJjli West stories. The price is that o| reprints, but the stories are formly first issues. They reach, nearly as possible, uniformity - merit as well, and high merit, their kind. .