SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2693, 12 February 1916, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION

"THE BOTTLE FILLERS." No living writer, not even Joseph • Conrad, can write "mori picturesquely, ~ ' more convincingly of W life, especially • life in the merchant, marine, than can Mr. Edward Noble,. whose fine stories, 1 "The Grain "Lords ol : tho Sea," and' Fisherman's Gap," are so > well known. Mr. Noble may not be so brilliant an analyst of character as Conrad. His is a less literary style ; he gives more detail of the everyday life of the merchant skipper or seaman and less psychology than does the author of ■ "Lord Jim" or "The Nigger of tho Nar- ! cissus." But he has always a clear-cut, ' straightforward story tu tell, and if, perhaps, he may make his moral or pur--1 pose a trifle too insistent, it must be i remembered he is terribly in earnest as a champion of those to whom Great ; Britain so largely owes her commercial • _ greatness—the officers and men of. her merchant service. It is they who "fill ' the bottles" and the pantries and cupboards of the British laudfemen, and too ! often, the landsman is sigularly \ selfishly- indifferent to the com- ■ fort and even the safety of ' those upon whom he so largely depends ' for his food supply. "Tho Bottle Fillers" (William . Heinemann; jier Geo. ' Robertson and Co.) is a powerfully : written, highly dramatic story, the hero and heroine of which are Denis O'Hagan, [ skipper of a cranky old tramp steamer, ; and his wife. The Phoenix is on her ' way from New York to Hamburg, her j! holds full, to the hatches, and her dtecks j encumbered with a load which had been better absent. It'is a grim and gruesome picture which the author gives his t readers, this of the cranky old tub j battling along in a furious sou'-west , gale in the middle of winter, and with j! her deck load breaking lose. When sho , ' enters the Channel both skipper and j mate aro worn out by lack of rest and r sleep. A mistake is made, and the Phoenix goes ashore, with the disas- . trous rosult for the pair that they have > their certificates suspended. In time O'Hagan gets a new berth, only to go down, with his'devoted little wife, in a coffin ship called the Griselda. I have read a good many sea storfoa in my time, from "The Wreck of tho Grosvenor" onwards, but I know of nothing in latter-day fiction that can equal in ite grim, relentless realism Mr. Noble's de.scription of the last hours of the Griselda. "The Bottle Fillers" is a, powerful and fascinating story, but one rises from its perusal with the conviction that a certain class of shipowner is as bad, in his own way, as the most ruthless of Huns. "THE INNER LAW." "The Inner Law," by Will. N. Harben (Harper and Bros; per D. 0. Ramsay and Co.), is a powerfully written story, the hero of which is a young man of I 5 a good old Southern family. Well edu- , cated, of an intellectual equipment far j above the average, young Carter Crof- | 3 ton's ambition is to achieve fame as a s poet. ■ Unhappily, he inherits a family r taint of sensuality and weakness ot will, . and aftor wronging a poor farmhouse . girl,'sinks into idleness and dissipation. I After his father's death, ho goes to Europe, where he lives for some years. A belated spiritual awakenment sends i- him back to his native Atlanta, and c there and in New York he seeks out the victim of his youth. Sho scorns with ". horror his offer of marriago, but even- ' tually fate throws the repentant father into the company of his long neglected i| illegitimate son, and eventually through > tha latter a. reconciliation with the s mother is followed by marriage, and the t trio set off for California to begin life afresh. The local colour of the earlier ;" chapters is picturesque and convincing, ' and tho subsidiary characters, notably ~ tho hero's father, are strongly drawn. ■ Mr. Harben's style is a little stilted, and the moral of the story is perhaps ~ unduly insistent, but in manv ways, 1 nevertheless, "The Inner Law 1 ' is a j story well above tlio average. "THE CRIME CLUB." 1- "The Criino Club," bv Frank Freest 1. (late Superintendent, Criminal Investi-

gation Department, Scotland Yard) and George Dilnot (London: Eveleigh Nash), is a collection of ingeniously coucocted and well-told stories of tile perennially popular "detective" type. The col- ' laboration of a gentleman skilled in the professional detection of crime with an equally skilled writer of fiction has borne excellent fruit, the stories being invested with a much greater air of probability than ordinary detective fiction is wont to be. The book takes its title from a real or imaginary club where famous English, French, and American dotectives foregather in London when off duty, comparing notes and exchanging useful information.