SOME OF THE NEW NOVELS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31345, 15 April 1967, Page 4

SOME OF THE NEW NOVELS

Dark at Seven. By Louis Battye. Seeker and Warburg. 214 PP-

This is a third novel by the author of “Cornwall Road” and "The Narrow Shore.” It deals with Graham Tindall, a man who in reply to the question, “What are you?” can only say, "I’m thirty years old, an accountant by profession, born near Aylesbury—l think that's as much as Pm certain of.” Graham is a solid middle-class citizen, slightly henpecked by his socially ambitious wife, who eventually

manoeuvres him on to the committee of a home for incurables. Eileen is concerned only with the social contacts, they will make through the committee, but Graham gradually becomes interested in the work of the home. The book is mainly about the Journey Graham makes with one of the residents, Norman Oddy, whom he is to take to another home for a holiday. The journey with its series of mishaps and eventual disaster is well described but all else in the book palls beside the magnificently drawn character of Norman whose complete honesty, vulgarity and humour have a tremendous effect on Graham. This is a novel of brilliant characterisa-

tion, considerable insight and wide implications. It moves with vigour and pace, compelling the reader on to the tragic climax and Graham’s searching reassessment of himself.

The Martlet’s Tale. By Nicholas Delbanco. Gollancz. 223 pp.

For the setting of his first novel this young Englishborn American author has chosen Greece, a country with which he is obviously familiar. He evokes the atmosphere of modern Athens and Rhodes, alternating between the sophisticated lives of the young people in Athens and the more constricted ways of the elderly in their country setting on Rhodes. The author has a profound understanding of the elderly, seeing into their minds and hearts with -a perception rare in a 23-year-old writer. His hero, Soritis, promised a legacy by his dying grandmother—who has already promised it to her three sons in turn and sent them on fruitless errands digging vainly for a treasure that may not even exist—goes from Rhodes to Athens, only to be disillusioned by city life among his contemporaries. He returns to Rhodes to find that the preparations being made for the celebration of his grandmother's birthday are now to serve for her funeral instead, as she had died the day before. There is no will and

i still no-one really knows ■ where her money is hidden — or if, indeed, there is any. The book jacket notes refer ; to the author’s “unmannered cadences." Sentences and ’ there are many of them—such 1 as “Send her with celebrating ' me, for now is no delay” 1 scarcely seem unmannered. Often the definite article is omitted and clarity is sacrificed for rhythm to such an extent that this, coupled with the writer’s complex style of switching from Athens to Rhodes, from past to present, between one sentence arid the next makes the book confusing. Symbolism, some of it obscure, is widely used. The end of the book leaves many subsidiary characters unaccounted for and the final situation unimplied. This is a book which begins well but leaves one unsatisfied at the end. The Country of Love. By Mallssa Redfield. W. H. Allen. 190 pp. The subject is an old oneclandestine love in a big city, and in this, her first novel, Miss Redfield says little about it that is new. The setting is the business World of New York, and the lovers are' thirtyish recently—divorced Sarah—secretary to a writer specialising in personal portraits of great men, and urbane fortyish Philip, married and determined, in the nicest way possible, to stay that way. (This is not of course his first marriage. The book teems with divorcees.) Philip is assistant to the irrascible tycoon that Sarah and her employer are currently studying. And so they meet. The story is presented objectively in the first person of Sarah, and it is through her dispassionate eyes we see the action, for torrid though the subject matter may be, Miss Redfield preserves at all times a curiously dampeddown style, more suitable to a tourist guide book than a description of the delectable terrain of the country of love. Fewer Play. By The Gordons. Macdonald. 338 pp. As a husband and wife team the Gordons have written nearly a dozen novels and their latest is a suspense novel in their usual tradition. Set in Washington it tells the rather far-fetched story of a plot by one man to destroy the integrity of the F.B.L and to use the Bureau for his own purposes of political power. The characterisation too tends to be a little melodramatic with the villain Dyke Crandall obsessed with vanity and the lust for power while the Congressman who opposes him, Glenn Holden is a typical American hero, clean-cut, young, idealistic and modest Yet in spite of these basic

faults the novel grips and holds one’s attention and maintains its suspense throughout its three hundred odd pages. There are crowds of characters briefly yet adequately sketched so one gains an impression of an ever busy ever intriguing political scene. The dialogue is consistently lively and the action continuous, fast-moving and exciting. This is scarcely a book to be taken seriously as the blurb suggests as a warning of a crisis the United States may face, but for those who enjoy novels on the back-stairs manoeuvring that goes on in politics this is worth reading.

Hunting Black. By J. 8. Tullett Whitcombe and Tombs. 192 pp.

The backdrop to Mr Tullett’s story of crime, passion and a fifty-man Search and Rescue operation is the mountain country of New Zealand, well presented in all its rugged beauty. The author is a keen fisherman and outdoor enthusiast and his novel reflects his tastes. Unfortunately his characters are not as convincing as their setting, and one must look continually for, “said Dick" or “said Jim,” to establish identity; little personal individuality comes through in action or conversation, save perhaps in the case of Euan Black, the villain. If we accept completely the devious brutality of Black’s character, and his hidden hatred for Raymond Gibbs who has given him a job and friendship, then the plot is a cruelly-credible one. There are, however, some points in the story that give food for thought Would any group of SAR. men really finish a hard rain-soaked day in the hills with a main meal of “raisins and cheese?” They would be good for little the next day if they did, surely. Later, a well-meaning but, it would seem, misinformed helper tries to force brandy between the lips of an injured and unconscious girl. (Most medical experts deplore the use of spirits in such cases.) Apart from all this, however, the book is an engrossing and lively yarn, putting across a good line in propaganda for the hunting potential of the New Zealand mountains for overseas visitors, and, incidentally, for the New Zealander with the experience and skill to run organised hunting safaris. As one of Mr Black’s characters says, “it’s a good way of channelling overseas revenue into the country." Pure Poison. By Hillary Waugh. Gollancz. 192 pp. A new book by Hillary Waugh is sure of a delighted welcome from his admirers. He has not disappointed them in this one in which Fred C. Fellows, chief of the Stockford Police Department, is set his most difficult assignment. Roger Chapman, a high official in Connecticut’s educational administration, ate a creamed onion at dinner and did not like the taste. His wife tried a small taste of onion and agreed that it was horrid. A couple of hours later Roger was dead and his wife dreadfully ill from strychnine poisoning. It was soon found out that a lot of strychnine had been Introduced into the milk from which the onion sauce had been made. That is all that was found out Chapman’s history from childhood was known in Stockford and was unblemished. He was a most unlikely man to attract violence by poison or any other means. His wife, an obvious suspect, is soon cleared. That leaves Fred Fellows well out at sea with-

out a compass. He and his two assistants, Wilks and Lewis, go to work with skilled zeal and proved police method to try to extract some meaning from the facta they have got—pitifully few facts there are—and for a long time enquiries produce nothing at ail. Fellows is a man of developed and sensitive Imagination—not the type which unravels a mystery with flamboyance but tile type which can take a set of facts and see far more of their possible developments of background than appear to the ordinary trained observer. His flair and his department’s hard and unremitting work bring a solution and the reader follows him along the trail with the closest attention every foot of the way.

Forgotten Heritage. By Rosaline Redwood. Whitcombe and Tombs. 191 pp.

"Forgotten Heritage” tells the story of an American journalist who, en route to the Antarctic (or “the ice” as it is invariably referred to in this novel) becomes involved with a New Zealand family and makes the astonishing and earth-shaking discovery that he is distantly related to them. The story begins on the Milford Track, moves to Stewart Island and later briefly to Christchurch. Throughout the 191 pages fantails twitter, bellbirds give out flute-clear notes, rata flowers, and the characters mouth "cheerful flat platitudes.” If the reader can bear to read pages of sentimental description of the New Zealand bush and coast in order to follow an equally sentimental and absurd plot he may manage to reach the end of this book.