From the new novels and reprints

Press, 19 April 1980, Page 17

From the new novels and reprints

Shadow of the Moon. By M. M. Kaye. Allen Lane, 1979. 612 pp. $12.95. No doubt the success of “The Far Pavilions” prompted Mrs Kaye’s publishers to reprint this earlier novel. It is set in nineteenth-century India and recounts the events that led up to the Indian’ mutiny in 1857. In the tradition of “romantic” novels it has a huge cast of characters, simplistically drawn. The good are very, very good, and the bad are perfectly horrid. However, Mrs Kaye has a comprehensive knowledge of the land of India, its history, and a wide sympathy with the character of its many peoples. Beneath the gorgeous pageantry of the British Raj she sees the ignorant patronage, the lack of understanding, the bureaucratic stupidity which led to cruel and bloody conflict. These underlying themes lift the story from the category of the magazine serial. — Meriel Farnsworth. Green River High. By Duncan Kyle. Collins. 263 pp $13.95. ' Searching through fetid, dangerous jungle for a long-lost aircraft and the mysterious wealth it contains is not a new subject for a thriller. But with his two unlikely heroes, lively writing and a diverting plot, Mr Kyle invests the formula with tension, humour, and fascination. George Tunnicliffe, former soldier, gets his name in the news, and as a result hears mysterious reports of his missing pilot father from the deceptively schoolmarmish . Miss Charity Franklin. Miss Franklin is the character of the book: a ' very competent and determined lady. It is with her that Tunnicliffe ventures into the Borneo jungle in search of the lost aircraft. But unexpected evil lurks on every side. To reveal more of the plot of this entertaining thriller would be unfair. Enough to say that it is one of the better tales of its type. — A. J. Petre.

Parson Harding's Daughter. By Joanna Trollope. Hutchinson. 285 pp. $lB.lO. The demand for romantic historical novels seems to be constant and though no-one has been able to supply it in a more accomplished style than the late Georgette Heyer, some new sources of supply are emerging. Joanna Trollope’s first novel, “Eliza Stanhope” was promising: her second, “Parson Harding’s Daughter,” shows her growing talent. Caroline Harding, second daughter of the parson of Stoke Abbas is “poor, plain and obscure,” a nonentity to the gentry of eighteenth century rural Dorset, until the local lady decides she can be of use as the bride of an unsatisfactory relation in Calcutta. Both the English and the Indian backgrounds are well drawn and the independent and interesting character of the heroine engages the reader’s attention sufficiently to make her welcome the happy ending to Caroline’s troubles. A reasonably constructed and not too sentimentally written piece of escapist fiction. — Margaret Quigley. Final Curtain. By Ngaio Marsh. Penguin. 232 pp. $2.95. “Final Curtain,” now 33-years-old, has worn well as it reappears in a new printing. An English country house bursting with eccentrics is the setting for a bizarre series of practical jokes which, almost by accident it seems, end in murder amid floods of family quarrels and outbursts of theatrical temperament. Dame Ngaio Marsh is a master of this genre. Her characters include such wonders as the egregious child Panty who is “being brought up on a system” and can thus get away with almost anything. There is a hint that tinned crayfish, part of a post-war food parcel from New Zealand, might be the murder “weapon” — “some antipodean shellfish” snorts Sir Henry Ancred as

he presides over his seventy-fifth birthday party. That party includes the reading of a new will to his grim family while his bride-to-be, 50 years his junior, sparkles amid the family jewels.' This time Roderick Alleyn, detective, shares the honours of solving the crime with his artist ■ wife Agatha Troy. Troy is on hand to paint Sir Henry in his role of “Macbeth” as “light thickens” over Ancreton Manor, while difficult children dig up the terraces and plant potatoes for a “freudian victory.” In all, a vintage gem. Saint Jack. By Paul Theroux. Penguin, 1979. 223 pp. $3.75. The news that a splendid story is being made into a film is always sad. It means having fixed and made explicit the varying shadows of the characters and their environment in the book. “Saint Jack,” a memorable tale of a seedy American’s middle age in Singapore, will make a very good film, but Paul Theroux’s novel will be diminished by the process. Still, more people might be persuaded to buy and read a book which first appeared in 1973, and that is a good thing. For Jack Flowers, who sometimes sees himself as a most unGodly saint, is a very engaging rascal; “a useful man,” he describes himself. "I’ve saved a lot of fellers from Rangoon itch in my time,” he muses, when trying to sum up his place in Singapore’s tourist world of 20 years ago. A word of warning. Readers who look for, Jack’s counterparts, or his Singapore, in today’s city will probably be disappointed. Economic progress, slum clearance, and a city studded with high rise hotels filled with geriatric tourist groups, have all combined to erode the • healthy vices traded by Saint Jack. Singapore now is a nicer place to live than Jack’s city, even if a trifle tedious in its earnest pursuit of material comfort. But Jack might still be there, on the redeveloped waterfront, musing over the day that got him started — famous as the procurer who towed a barge load of whores out to a frustrated ship’s crew in the midst of a tropical storm. How could any-film producer resist a scene like that?