NEW FICTION

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30448, 23 May 1964, Page 4

NEW FICTION

The Dangerous Islands. By Ann Bridge. Chatto and Windus. 255 pp.

Julia Probyn, who has already made herself known to Ann Bridge’s readers, appears here in a dual role—as a conspirator with M. 1.5 to defeat Communist machinations, and as a woman in' love. Cruising with her brother Philip Reeder and his wife, and the latter’s brother Colin Monro, off the northwest coast of Scotland, she and Colin stumble on the Erinish Isles on a curious installation sunk well into the ground which Colin, a Secret Service man, rightly suspects to be a signalling apparatus. He reports this find to his London Office, and Colonel Jamieson of M. 1.5 is sent north to investigate. It is obvious from the first that he and Julia are mutually attracted, and from now onwards the suspense rises, as the movements of Russian trawlers and other alien vessels engage their attention. Unfortunately a harmless old professor of archaeology, who Julia has known since childhood, is also involved, and this leads to a temporary coolness between her and Jamieson. However, the enemies’ schemes do not end in Scotland, and when the two sleuths, professional and amateur, are called first to an island off County Mayo, in Ireland (where Julia narrowly escapes being murdered), and then to the Isles of Scilly, the plot, as they say, thickens. The course of true love, though chequered, and the foiling of a plot which puts the whole of the British Isles in danger of destruction from unsuspected attack, is fairly predictable, and the book draws to an exciting close with all loose ends firmly secured. Summer. By Peter Cowan. Angus and Robertson. 190 pp.

Peter Cowan is acclaimed in Australia as a writer of short stories, and there is something of the compactness and tension in this novel which reflects the short-story technique. Henry Powell, a Melbourne business man,

whose marriage has broken up faces the difficult decision on’what to do with an aimless and splritually-empty existence. Memories of a happy interlude during his rather bleak youth make him resolve to go back to the wheat country in Western Australia, and by working there try to recapture some sense of purpose in life. The local storekeeper, Tom Everitt, and his wife, Jill are his nearest neighbours, and he soon discovers that Tom maltreats and humiliates his wife, while carrying on an illicit affair with a young girl whose dissolute family gives parties which degenerate into drunken orgies. The isolation of their lives draws Henry and Jill together, and when Tom discovers their affair violence ensues. Tom’s more or less accidental death at Henry s hands, and the latter’s panic concealment of the body pose a new problem to the couple. The inquiry which follows the store-keeper’s disappearance lays a great strain upon their natural instincts of honesty and Integrity. The way to a happy ending to their ordeal is neatly and plausibly described, and rounds off a highly readable novel.

The Water Castle. By Brenda Chamberlain. Hodder and Stoughton. 150 pp.

Elizabeth and her husband Antoine pay a long promised visit to Germany to Klaus, Elizabeth’s friend and correspondent for 20 years. She sees places and meets people familiar to her from Klaus’s letters. In Westphalia she seta foot in the moated farm where Klaus and his first wife, Brita. had been happy for a short time. The old house is now filled with relatives—refugee aristocrats from the east, most of them living in the past davt of their greatness and free dom. Only Klaus himself, heii to a fairy-tale castle now in Russian hands, has no illusions as he farms his peasant holding. Miss Chamberlain evokes the atmosphere of the old house and countryside, the bitter cold and poverty, with almost painful clarity, but her characters, particularly Klaus and Helga, his present wife, Antoine and Elizabeth herself are unsubstantial.