SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2432, 10 April 1915, Page 5

SOME RECENT FICTION.

RALPH CONNOR'S LATEST. By this time the experienced novel reader knows exactly what to expect from a new story by that popular Canadian author, Mr. Ralph Connor. There is generally a plucky, duty-loving, and warm-hearted mounted trooper, who is entrusted with the difficult and dangerous task of hunting down a desperado; there are adventures in plenty by flood and field—and amidst snows and ice— and thore is generally a very pleasant little love story interwoven into the narrative. All these features and others equally attractive are again to the fore in Mr. Connor's latest novel, "The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail" (Hodder and Stoughton; per Whitcombe and Tombs). Mr. Connor could not weary his readers, tried he ever so hard to do so —which of course he never does —and he has never mitten a more wholesomely cxciting and readable a story than this record of the courage apd skill which are displayed by his hero, Sergeant R. Cameron, when at the request of the Superintendent he re-enters the service he had left, and devotes himself to the task of tracking down and outwitting the schemes of the half-breed Indians who are "making trouble" in the Upper Saskatchewan country. Those who remember "The Man from _ Glengarry" and "The Sky Pilot" will not be disappointed with "The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail." THEIR MONTH. When a young wife sets up a Platonic friendship with a handsome young Italian, and defies Mrs. Grundy by affording him the hospitality of her flat—a flat which her absent husband has no idea is in existence —it is only natural that friends and acquaintances should say rather illnatured things. The little episode ends in tragedy, for when a suspicious husband re-appears and brutally drives away the too seductive Mario, the inexpressibly silly wife, is killed shortly afterwards in a railway collision, whilst the Italian philanderer, no sooner hears of her death than he drowns himself. The story of this illfated attachment i 6 told by Nina Claremont in "Their Month" (John Long). LITTLE MRS. LEE. 'A slight but pleasantly told story, in which the leading figure is a social parasite of peculiarly ingratiating manners, is Margaret Hope's "Little Mrs. Lee" (Mothuen and Co.). I have called Mrs. Lee a social parasite, but on second consideration, tho term is perhaps too severe, for tho amiable but frivolous little lady, who is befriended liy Grace Noyes and her relations, is quite unconsciously selfish. She makes her way into tho affections of her bonofactors by a charming irresponsibility which Is not merely, as it often is in real life, an affectation, but 110110 the less she leads the worthy Benfields such a dance that when at last, alio disappears as suddenly as she had made her advent into Grace' Noyes' chambers, tho friends she haa iar.de use of so coolly cannot regret tile erent. Mrs. Lee's husband, a. very shadowy persnn, only, crow no towards tlio «ud of tho..

story, but most readers of the book will bo inclined to think him. well rid oHsujfli a flighty spouse, and that fco is exceedingly foolish to follow that lady fo ; A?ric'a, whither she has hastily lakon her departure in company of a more masterful and fascinating gentleman. Tlio story is told in a quietly humorous way which is very attractive. THE LONE WOLF. Louis J. Vance, the clever .Amerioan novelist who gave us those capital stories "The Black Bag" and "The Man on the Box," is quite at her best in her latest elt'ort "The Loue Wolf" (Eveleigh Nash), in which he introduces us to a cosmopolitan criminal of IrishAmerican extraction, named Bourke. This worthy, a pastmaster in the higher branches of rascality, prides himself upon "working" alone, and by refusing 0 throw in his lot with a gang of international jewel thieves, known as "The Pack," incurs their deadly enmity. The scene of the story is laid in Paris. With the shady side of life in La Villa Lumiere—as it was in the pre-Zeppelin danger period—the author displays a very intimate acquaintance, about, indeed, as "extensive and peculiar" as was Mr. Samuel Weller's knowledge of London, but ho should not tell of lee "boulevardes" or Le Rive Droit, for "boulevard" has no final "e" and "rive" is a feminine not a masculine nGun. The "Lone Wolf" is pursued by her enemies with positively diabolical cunning, but he ingeniously thwarts them, . and with the aid of a young American lady, their unwilling, and, as events prove, unfaithful tool, succeeds in his determination to turn oyer a new leaf and lead an honest life, a decision largely influenced, it is almost unnecessary to state, first by his pity for, _ and later by his deep attachment to, the young lady aforesaid. Mr. Vance is almos extravagantly generous in his supply of sensation, and not even the once-famous De Boisgobey or Gaboriau ever concocted more complicated adventures for their oriminal heroes than those in which the "Lone Wolf" and his fair assistant take part. A sensational but well-written, and veryreadable yarn.