NEW FICTION

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31316, 11 March 1967, Page 4

NEW FICTION

Too Hot To Hold. By Day Keene. Herbert Jenkins. 174 pp.

I In this tough thriller there is no slackening of pace. Lew Dix, a Chicago leader of bad men. is required to pay 200.000 dollars each year to Mafia headquarters in New York. He does not like to-send the money by bank draft or through the mail because Internal Revenue agents would like to know just how much income he makes, and this tribute to the Mafia could give them a line on percentages. He gives the money, wrapped in a gift parcel, to a girl, Linda Larsen, to deliver to head office. In a heavy rainstorm Jim Brady thinks that her taxi, stopped in a traffic jam near Central Station, is empty and tries to enter it. Linda, understandably nervous, leaves the taxi (and the parcel) and runs across the road. There can be only one end to that and she is hit by a truck and taken to hospital. Jim Brady, who has a horrible wife and stepchildren, finds the money and realises that it could help him to escape from his grey existence. He keeps it. Now 200,000 dollars to the Mafia is but a bagatelle, but it is a society that has many demands upon its finances and must be careful. Furthermore, its members hold strong views on the iniquity of stealing—from the Mafia. When the money does not arrive the Mafia protests to Mr Dix, who sends two gunmen to find Linda and to reason with her. They do that, and kill her taxi driver while questioning him. They get a lead on Jim Brady, and from that point, he, they, Mr Dix (who comes from Chicago to lend personal assistance and advice), the New York Police Department, and finally some smooth experts from the Mafia all mix it in a very tough manner indeed.

High Acres. By Henrietta Mason. Whitcombe and Tombs. 206 pp.

This is the third book of a trilogy, and contains, as is inevitable, rather perfunctory references to people and places which have figured in the first two. The author, however, has a story to tell, and tells it well. The struggle between wool and synthetics (so apposite at the present time) is the predominant theme, and young David Spencer. Shelton, a nuclear physicist, with his roots in New Zealand, is faced with a knotty problem. His ancestral home, High Acres, a large sheep-station in Canterbury, is mortgaged to the hilt, and is managed by a man in failing health. His own instincts tell him to continue his scientific studies, but he changes his mind when an Australian firm (embodied in the person of a fascinating but cold individual called von Neurath) makes a determined assault on the wool industry with a new synthetic fabric called “Veralene,” and proposes to build a factory to Wellington to produce it. Human interests of course are given their full value—with some obvious pairings off among the young people—including David and the daughter of 'a canning tycoon. The final scene at Mount Cook in which the much advertised “Veralene Girl” a youthful Wellington model, known to David—is nearly frozen to death after an accident, is an indirect triumph in the battle for wool, as the doctor attending her expresses the opinion that had she been wearing wool she might have been to better case when found. This smacks a little of special pleading, but Henrietta Mason is, quite properly, all for the virtues of wool. She has a good pen for describing some rather dreary types which abound in our urban population with their endless chitchat, and cups of tea and their depressingly false social values.

The Red Geranium. By Van Siller. Hammond, Hammond. 237 pp.

When a French butler takes his own peculiar brand of morals to a New York suburb, some of the young wives to the district enjoy the delights of an exotic influence on a humdrum existence. Dissatisfaction with their commuter husbands plays some of these women right into Aqtoine’s ready hands, and many readers will no doubt sympathise with their boredom. Husbands beware! If your living room window-sill is sporting a red potted geranium, keep a strict eye on your wife. When young Joan Blake conceives the idea, she has to keep her eyes and ears open, as her young son and friendly neighbours are likely to appear without warning while she and Antoine are sipping champagne to the

kitchen! (A right gentleman, this Antoine—he arrives complete with a magnum of champagne.) Some close calls serve to heighten the suspense, yet all the while the loving spouse is conveniently blind to what is going on right under his nose. The contrivance of some of the wives, who all the time keep up a calm, respectable front for the benefit of their neighbours and children, is most amusingly exploited, and the author has a genius for interrupting things at a crucial moment. As a commentary on American suburban society, this book is interesting, humour is sustained very cleverly—and the amorality of the situation is made credible.

The Night 1* a Time for Listening. By Elliot West Gollancz. 246 pp.

This is a spy novel which tells a credible story and does it very well indeed. Mr Elliot shows strong construction of plot, a warm understanding of his character* and of the situations forced upon them, and writes with taut craftsmanship. It is a pleasure to find a writer of this type of book who has regard for the niceties of punctuation. The story concerns Darsoss, an American whose wife had been killed during the war by a Major Vorst of the Gestapo. He had slowly drowned her during questioning. Darsoss is driven by a searing hatred and his thoughts and actions are channelled towards having a few crowded momenta with Major Vorst. Shortly after the end of the war he picks up Vorst’s trail but finds he is a prisoner of the Russians. The Russians are prepared to hand Vorst over for private vengeance provided that Darsoss helps them in a way in which he is peculiarly fitted to do. He has one of those unusual memories which can recall at will anything which he has read or has been told to him. Darsoss is to be the link between the Russians and Quennel, an English atomic scientist who wishes to give them scientific secrets so that the new knowledge cannot be used for overwhelming military advantage. In London, the byways of treachery through which Darsoss journeys in order to reach Quennel are well depicted and offer some surprises. Quennel’* wife shares his idealism, and Darsoss's cover story is to be Mrs Quennel’s lover. Quennel dies before giving Darsoss all the information wanted by the Russians, and Darsoss and Mrs Quennel find that they are indeed to love. Darsoss’s hatred for Vorst is no longer his main. purpose in life and the problem for the remainder of the book is the unloosening of the meshes which hold them bound. It is extremely well done and the book deserve* strong recommendation.