SOME NEW NOVELS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 118, 14 November 1931, Page 19

SOME NEW NOVELS

A WIDE CHOICE

Warwick Deeping has followed up "Sorrell and Son" with "The Road" (Cassell). The story is set in Sussex, and contains some charming rural descriptions. • An ex-soldier horticulturist is the hero, and the daughter of a, tea room owner the heroine. This is a good, straight-forward story, with the proverbial happy ending. "Serenade," by Olive Wadsley (Cassell), tells the story of a prima donna who is turned- down by a lover in favour of her daughter. But Fate steps in and awards happiness where happiness is due. Le Roy MacLeod is a young American poet and "Three Steeples" (Cassell) is his first novel. His is the story of a family of small farmers in the. "eastern 'Middle West" of the United States, and the drama of their lives is told in lyric language. : : The title of "Life Is Such a Rush," by Christine Jope-Slade (Cassell), is an apt one for the story of the life of the hero. He lives in a whirl, and is only prevented from a brain smash by the peace and refuge he finds with his wife. But his home life has a crash through a false step innocently taken by his wife. "The Old Crowd," by William Fitzgerald (Longmans), is rather off the beaten track. It was twenty years since Colonel Harlau fell dead at the foot of the back stairs of his house. It did not stand apparent what lie was doing on the back stairs of his house in the middle of the night. Indeed, there was much, when one came to think back, to remember, that he did not fit iii with the formal picture of the colonel, so gentlemanly, so courteous, the man to'represent good taste in asocial crisis. So when everyone, thinking back over those twenty years, recalled wliat the colonel, apart from his veneer, had been, like, there was a new. picture of the man, a different picture. j Tho conversion of a German industrial magnato to Socialism is tho theme j of "Seven Days," by Andreas Latzko (Cassell). Baron Mangien, Germany's car-k'ing, travels to.Berlin to spend Christmas with, his mistress. A resentful ex-employee blackmails him into changing places. The workman, dressed in the millionaire's clothes, is shot by thd'husband of Mangien's mistress. But his purpose is achieved, for having tasted of tenement life on labour wages, tho great magnate returns to his factory, after numerous adventures, with very modified ideas on the relationship between .employer and employee. A typical Ethel M. Dell story is "The Silver Wedding." It is the story of a woman, who, aftor marrying the knight of Jier girlhood's dreams, finds herself very far from attaining her early ideals. The tremendous, crisis .of the war, whilst separating her temporarily from her husband and family, brings her "into contact with another man with a spirit so akin to her own that, in a moment of fearful danger, they cling together, awaiting death. But death does not come and they are separated. When they meet again, years later, they are immediately drawn by the memory, and the contest begins which leads at length to the triumph of the greater love. "The New Crusade" concerns a millionaire who plans to turn England naked. "He buys a newspaper to plug tho idea of nakedness; ho parades the Dawk (a most entertaining gentleman) naked-through Surrey, carrying a banner proclaiming tho new- crusade. This. story makes a joyems-piece of fun, and those who read into it a little deeper than; others, will Bnd it a searching skit,on modern conditions and the power of the Press. Tho author is Anthony Gibbs, Hutchinson's being the publishers:'" ' Tho-girl, who provides the title i'or. "Hester Craddock," by Alyse Gregory (Longmans), loves well trafr-not. wisely, and a morbid talc ends in suicide. "Sundown," by Dyke Acland (Hoddcr and Stoughton), is a. novel of a changed man, tho theme being the falling ..of a great industrial fortune in.to tho hands of a weakling who spends the money that the strong man has made. When at the very beginning of "Man Made the Town" the wilful and haughty miss meets and scorns the young doctor who * advises her to recuperate in the country, it is not hard to guess that they will be married before the end-of the story. This is what happens after 300'pages of misunderstandings. The author is Ruby M. Ayres, the publishers being Hodder and Stoughton. Two other Hodder and Stoughton novels arc "The Doctor of Lonesome River," by Edison Marshall, a rousing story of frozen Alaskan wastes, and "Out All Night," the last novel of the late J. E. Buckrose, a delightful inconsequential story that makes pleasant reading. Three novels from Collins are "Such Women Are Rare" (F. E. Baily), which proves that money cannot always buy a wife; ".The Whips of Time," a vivid tale of Northern Bhodesia, by Norman Giles; and "Caught in the Wild," a typical "wild west" story, by R. Ames Bennct. "Dream Lover" is a romaneo by Beryl Symona (Herbert Jenkins). An unpleasant lady has a very evil tongue, which' she uses with great cunning to' gain her ends.