SOME RECENT NOVELS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 70, 23 March 1935, Page 13

SOME RECENT NOVELS

VARIETY IN FICTION

Marjorie Bowen can be depended upon to write a semi-historical romance which is eminently readable. In "The Veil'd Delight" (Collins) she tells one of the strangest stories of English history—a story , founded on fact—of the adventures of ' Henry Brodie at Criffel Hall in the North of England when he became tutor to the daughters of. an eccentric nobleman. Flora, the heiress, was madly jealous of her stepsister Harriet; but; Henry was in love with Harriet, and, although defenceless against his employers, and

the dangerous, affection of Flora, he has one powerful weapon—a power of which he himself is afraid. The artificial background of the mid-eighteenth century against which the story takes place, serves only to intensify the vivid reality of its striking characters.

Bulldog Drummond's adventures seem to provide an inexhaustible theme for "Sapper." The excitement in "Bulldog Drummond at Bay" (Hodder and Stoughton) begins in a Norfolk cottage with a brick coming through the window and a cry in the night. Sitting in the room cleaning his gun, Hugh ("Bulldog") Drummond was pardonably annoyed, and his investigations soon brought him, with; Ronald Standish and Peter Darrell, into combat with as insidious an evil as could be wished for by the most hardened reader. Two ruthless international crooks thought they had made an end of "Bulldog" Drummond and his friends when they lured them to almost certain death, but the boot was on the other foot and the last laugh was one which echoed in the dungeons of a moated grange. U , Another exciting yarn published by Hodder and Stoughton is "The Saint in New York," by Leslie, Chartens. When William K. Valcross, the American millionaire, introduced himself to the Saint in Madrid and offered him all his expenses and a million dollars in cash if he could bring to justice the men who kidnapped and killed his son, Simon Templar took up the commission with the same lighthearted confidence as he had ; tackled every, other adventure in his gay and lawless career. It was not until he. was well up above the eyes in a peculiarly perilous system of trouble that he realised exactly how much he had taken on. ''■■:■

"Green Willows," by Renee Shann (Collins), is a romance of the stage. Ray Morrison, a girl fighting her hard way on the stage, has barely a penny to heiv''name'•■when, .she meets Noel Thurston, the well-known playwright. He takes a liking to her, and gives her a small part in his new play, "Green Willows." The liking intensifies into a deeper personal interest, and he puts up to' her the surprising proposition that she shall live in a little flat, the expense of which he will provide, and become his confidante and friend—nothing more than that! He is tired of being lionised and wants an obscure retreat where he can be at peace. Ray consents, because she discerns that-he is not the type of man to choose an oblique method of getting a girl'into his power. But difficulties soon arise when Noel's wife, who left him two years ago, returns to London anxious for a reconciliation, and takes a flat next door to Ray's. And Mark Raine. a young doctor in .love with Ray, is perforce kept unaware of her unusual arrangement with Thurston. The subsequent" complications can well be imagined. The inhabitants of a-typical London boarding-house are the characters' in "Boarding House,"' by" Peter Delius (Lovat Dickson>. Cross sections of their lives provide entertaining material, for the people described are a quaint collection of oddities. '"I Am Your Brother," by G. S. Marlowe (Collins), must be placed in the thriller class^almost. It is a psychological study Of a haunted artist. Another story with a strange theme is "The Ghost Wife," by Jean Devanny (Duckworth). The spirit of a first wife enslaves a man who is ruled by his ideals, after he has married a second time to find sanctuary from old memories. The position of a young stepmother is made difficult by the jealousies of a predecessor's children and the privileges and the rights of a second wife are set against things of the past that are guarded and reserved by her husband. An exciting story of beautiful women spies, secret cyphers, and the like is "Q33," by George Goodchild (Collins). "The Venner Crime," by John Rhode, is a typical detective tale with two corpses (one frozen) and any number of red herrings. Two Wild West adventure stories are "The Rancher's Revenge," by Max Brand (Hodder and Stoughton), and "Hard-Boiled Sperling," by C. W.: Sanders. .