HOLIDAY FICTION

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 124, 21 November 1925, Page 17

HOLIDAY FICTION

The holidays are fast approaching, and there will be the.usual heavy demand for fiction. Brief notes of the latest noyels are here given by way of suggestion. , "A Wife in Kenya," by Nora K. Strange (London: Stanley Paul). The author has made Kenya Colony a setting for two other novels. She has tbe'faculty for telling a story especially interesting to growing girl readers; Here Pierce.and Beryl Napier apply for a divorce. They don't "get on"; but that does not prevent them seeking consolation elsewhere with dramatic results. Nora K. Strange is excellent in her descriptions of .East African life; society, and scenery. "Sunclouds," by Roy Octavus Cohen (London: Hoddcr and Stoughton). Here is a pretty tangle, full of humour, in which one colonred man' endeavours to outwit another. This is a delightfully amusing book, clever, unusual, and entertaining. Mr. Cohen, has struck and developed a rich vein of precious' metal in southern negro comedy. ','The Shadow on. the Glass," by Charles J. Dutton (London: Herbert Jenkins), is. an absorbing mystery story of the murder of a millionaire on tho very day of a wedding in' the family. John Batley, a clever detec-tive,-takes the matter in hand, andhe has a. pretty tough problem to solve, so will the reader if he tries to anticipate,the sequel. ''The' Ship of Souls," by Emerson Hough (New York: 1). Applcton and Co., through Robertson alul -^ul' Icns^ Melbourne), has already been favourably reviewed in "The Post." It is a' powerful story, mainly of Indianlife in the far. north of Canada, and of k thc use of wireless in achieving'a dramatic climax. ■ . '-"Out'of the Desert," by Alan Dare (Lqn'd6n::. Herbert Jenkins), is by the author of "Killigrew" and "The Isle of 'l^ate, ".' who' has chosen the East- as the setting, for this latest novel/ Nina Crichton is heroine. She is a-leader, of a set that imagines the world crowded with dolls in the shape of men. Nina is chaperoned by Mrs. Arinitage, has a job to curb the impulsive waywardness of her charge. At Cairo, : Nina fell under the spell of the tropics, and allowed Arnaud dc Severae to make violent love to her. Keynes, a cotton grower and ex-of-ficer, who has little time for women, being more interested in his" crops and his plantation life, rescued her from a houseboat, whither the pseudoFrenchman had lured her with evil intentions. To cover her absence from the hotel for a night, Nina, unknown to Keyncs;-pretends that she has eloped with her rescuer. When tho news is public property, Keynes, rather than humiliate the young woman, sets out to make the story fact. Keynes is aji admirable man for the role of wifetamer; and he does it with a cool indifference to the outraged feelings of tho spoiled society darling. It.is at ■El Eashe, the home of Keynes, that Nina finds happiness in the arms of her desert lover, restored to him by the Kainsheen, that terrible enemy of the desert traveller that fills the world with aand and makes life a torture.. .' ■ . . • : ■. ' .

"Eoads ..of. Doubt," by William MacLeod Baine (London:-Hodder and Stoughton), is an exciting story of the troubles . that railroad builders in America experience (in fiction) with their business rivals. ,In this case, Jarvis Elliott determines to run a line' through the Bockies and Winthrop Ordway.is dead against him, doing anything of tfye kind. But Elliott has a bright and fearless engineer in Bobert Hallock, and a brilliant and plucky, assistant in his own daughter. This girl may be the daughter of a millionaire, and not have'to work for her living, sho may be very modern, but she is plucky, and so when tho moment comes to show her mettle she is there with it in plenty. She not only saves the life of the engineer, but —-well, the reader of this thrilling romance will not be disappointed with its ending.