SOME OF THE NEW NOVELS

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31380, 27 May 1967, Page 4

SOME OF THE NEW NOVELS

No One Hears But Him. By Taylor Caldwell Collins. 287 pp. Situated in four acres of lawns and gardens in an American suburb is a small white building known as the Sanctuary. In it is the Man Who Listens. Some think he is a doctor, a psychiatrist, or a minister. Only those who have entered the Sanctuary know his real identity. In this. Miss Caldwell’s second novel about the occupant of the Sanctuary, she gives brief accounts of the lives of twelve men and women who are so lacking in hope that they are prepared to try anything in an attempt to restore their minds to some semblance of peace—even to visiting this place scorned by many as a kind of fortune-telling panacea. The twelve include a lapsed Roman Catholic, a minister* an agnostic and an atheist As befits her theme, Miss CaldweH is carefully nonsectarian, The pseudo-intel-lectuals will not like this book (any more than Miss Taylor Caldwell likes the pseudo-intellectuals) for there is plenty to scoff at in this sincere attempt to put before her readers a solution to the materialism and loneliness which beset so many people today. Although most of these twelve people are not lonely in the accepted sense, none has anyone in whom to

confide. In common with most people today, their friends are so preoccupied with what they themselves have to say that none of them has time to listen to the problems of others. The twelve “souls,” as Miss Caldwell has called them, have problems so diverse that most readers will identify themselves with at least one of them, and, however disparate their problems and their ages, the solution is the same for each —a solution which can only be worked out by their own self-knowledge and in a manner to suit their individual needs. In essence the solution is universal and eternal, whether It is the problem of the thirty-year-old husband who refuses to grow up and accept his parental responsibilities, or the young girl so bored with life that she takes to drugs, or the woman whose child is dying of leukaemia. The solution is a return to the Man Who Listens—the only one who really listens all the time with compassion: and who has suffered more than any of his suppliants. But he offers no syrupy salvation. In contrast to the beautiful lawns around the building, the fine furniture and subdued lighting in the waiting room and the luxurious blue velvet curtains which conceal him, he demands a self-revelation which is terrible in its intensity. But these twelve men and women go out of the Sanctuary heartened by the message on the wall of the waiting room: “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.” The Captive James. By Betty King. Herbert Jenkins. 221 pp.

James the First of Scotland, thrown headlong into the political intrigues of his father’s court at an early age, soon wins the readers’ sympathies. Although James spent the greater part of his life a prisoner in some form or another and was foully murdered while still a young man, there is much in the story of his years of confinement that is stimulating. The Tudor court of Henry IV seemed bright and gay to the young prisoner, compared to the dour gloom of his native Scotland, and he did not at first fret for his freedom. As he continued his studies at the court, under the kindly eye of Henry, who treated him like a son, he learned many valuable lessons, which were to stand him in good stead later, when he returned to

Meanwhile, some of the Scottish nobles who remained loyal to James kept agitating for his release, and finally the ransom sum was set James learned of the amount with sinking hopes—how could poor Scotland hope to raise such a sum? And he had to complicate matters by falling in love. This book, which provides a human story from the historical drama of the fifteenth century, will appeal to young and old alike. The Gold of Malabar. By Berkley Mather. Collins. 222 pp. This is a first-rate adventure story which moves at an exciting pace from start to finish. Mike O'Reilly, an Irish escaper from a Goanese prison, makes his way across India by any means available to a man with a price on his head and little money in his pocket. Just before his death Rokkjer, a fellow convict in the Goanese gaol, hands O’Reilly a medal and gives him a cryptic message and instructions to get in touch with a Buddhist monk in Bombay. O’Reilly reaches the city, meets Nu Pah, now a former Buddhist monk, and they set out in search of the gold of Malabar. But this is no ordinary cache—it is the vast quantity of gold melted down into ingots by the Dutch Immediately before the Japanese Invasion of the East Indies. Subsequently it is smuggled to the Malabar coast, south-west India, en route to Japan by a Japanese officer, who intends to return after the war to collect it. To the tension of evading capture, O'Reilly and Nu Pah add the tensions produced by their mutual distrust; but, as survival depends on their remaining together amicably, they gradually learn to accept each other’s shortcomings. At first Nu Pah and O’Reilly believe that only they know about the gold and the whereabouts of the map which will lead them to it (they know that the Japanese officer and his men are dead), but their discovery that the price on O’Reilly's head is sixty thousand rupees convinces them that this is more than any prison authority would offer for an ordinary escaped prisoner. Obviously, someone else knows about the gold. After near-starvation, torture and bullet wounds they are within an ace of their goal when the doctor who has twice helped Nu Pah and O’Reilly is badly wounded in a shooting affray with the

man who offered the sixty thousand rupees. If they return the doctor to his jungle hospital they will be captured by the police. If they do not, he will die. The ending Is neat, and these original characters behave credibly in the exotic setting the author has placed them in. Very Like A Whale. By Ferdinand Mount. Weidenfeld and Nicoison. 189 pp. This is yet another first novel, by yet another bright young man, and like most of its "genre,” it is easily read and easily forgotten. The Whales are an Establishment family, vague and passive, who, while they cannot quite hold their place against the restless competition of the meritocracy, at least have a certain flair for graceful defeat. Three generations in steadily increasing decay, represent the family. The grandfather, Brigadier Whale is senile; the father is a solid, bemused Cabinet Minister in danger of being sacked; the son is in a bank, and he, witnessing the demise of the older generations, finds it easier to join the opposition —in his case the tiresome vigour of the commercial world. The action moves along swiftly and deftly, with mild humour and a pleasant tone of sympathetic irony- At times harder truths loom menacingly through the lazy ocean in which the Whales bask, but are not allowed to interfere with the relaxed cruise to nowhere special. Bait For a Killer. By George Bagby. Hammond and Hammond. 191 pp.

New York was in a turmoil because of a transport strike, and Terry Logan, on traffic duty downtown, compelled four reluctant men, in a Cadillac and in a traffic jam, to give Greta Marsh a lift up Fifth Avenue. Their reluctance was understandable enough, for Greta found one of the men was dying of a stab-wound recently inflicted by the least attractive of the other three. This led to embarrassment and constraint in the car; and what should be done ' with Greta created a nice problem in manners and choice of appropriate action. The obvious solution was to take her to a secluded suburban spot and there despatch her with the same knife, after dark. She, however, escaped and was found in a country lane by the author, Mr Bagby, but she thought he was one of her attackers and reacted unfavourably with teeth and nails to his attempts to help. His friend. Inspector Schmidt, vouched for his good character, but Greta was inclined to suspect even Inspector Schmidt The three bad men assiduously tried to eliminate her afresh, and the knife man eventually was able to enter her apartment Butter-fingers again, he bungled the job. From this point on, Greta was the unwilling and perturbed central figure in a game of pull-devil-pull-baker between the police and those seeking to harm her.