BOOK NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 182, 3 July 1936, Page 6

BOOK NOTES

AN OPPENHEIM THRILLER. A crop of thriller writers has risen and withered hut Mr E. Phillips Oppenheim blooms perennially. His latest book —his forty-fifth—is a series of stories in which the leading characters reappear. It is entitled “Ask Miss Mott.” Chief among them is Miss Mott, niece of a Scotland Yard detective, who has established her own private inquiry bureau, and a burglar whose personality can best bo indicated by quoting his own words uttered a few moments after lie lias entered Miss Mott’s office by way of the window: “I dabble in irregularities, but I also have leanings towards philanthropy. I have stolen this compromising and dangerous package to save the honour and, perhaps, the life of a charming lady whose disappearance from society would be regretted by all her friends.” The burglar also has romantic proclivities, and before the book ends bo skilfully picks the lock of a lady’s heart; but whose, in a book of this kind, it would be unfair to disclose. It is pleasing to note that the author lias lost none of his renowned skill in weaving an engaging tale of mystery. "SHEBA LANE.” Pearl fishers have always had something of romantic glamour about them for the man in the street. Whether because of the beauty of tho object 1 from which they search, or because of the mystery which always envelops enterprise connected with the sea, it would be hard to say. But, alas, like most industries, subjected to the ruthless hand of “progress,” pearl fishing has lost most of its glamour with the introduction of fool-proof diving suits, and other modern apparatus. It is the pearl fishing industry at Broome that Mrs Drake-Mroekman tells of •in her new novel, “Sheba Lane.” She tolls an interesting story, and tells it well. Broome, like other towns of its typo, is the stamping ground for nil sorts and conditions of men. Remittance men, confidence men, holiest toilers, and dishonest loafers; and moving amongst the white population is that large army of yellow and black people inseparable from such an enterprise in a tropical zone. The central figure in tho talc is the Honourable Christopher Kent, a young Englishman who has failed at home both in love and the more practical affairs of life, and finally clutched at the pearl industry as a last hope. He is an attractive character, but weak. June Goer, who returns from years,of education in the south, foils desperately in love with him, and has tlie misfortune to attract a little of his attention owing to her likeness to tho woman who occupies his dreams. Many other characters arc introduced; the likeable Montgomery, the inevitable Queenie, the wholesome Peter Fordyce, and the snobbish Mrs Tweedie arc all drawn with skill and insight. “THE OCEAN.” Beyond Archangel, to the rim of the Arctic, moved by pioneer instincts, goes William Petrovitch with his wife, Vera, to found a home on bleak, treeless shores. William is to be a tree, mighty of branch and root, for there will be sons and daughters, and neigh-

hours will come. Then begins an arduous, lifelong, and not unsuccessful struggle. Vera is happy enough; living through her husband and her , children she is at one remove from the front of conflict. But she was a town girl. At long and irregular intervals come letters from friends in Archangel, eagerly anticipated, devoured on arrival, and then, by sheer force of will, lived down. When the children arc about her knee comes a crisis. The captain of a marooned ship lives for some months in the Pctrovitcli home, but the natural bonds prove strong, and Vera goes on. Then, with the family grown and its older children stirred by the vague melancholy of adolesccne, comes the revolution. Two sons are conscripted. They return, later, men, with great tales of the world beyond; the mother’s strain in them has prevailed. They depart after a struggle with the will of the father, and tiie others, each after a similar struggle, follow. Abandoned, worn with hardship, and defeated in spirit by the knowledge of a life of service to William lived in vain. Vera dies. Let with no one by a dull Lapp servant, William is for a time distraught. Then the servant becomes a woman in his eye. Big of limb, stolid, unimaginative, fit mother of cartlibound sons and daughters, she is the woman lie should have had from the beginning. He takes her to wife. Vera and all that has been are as nothing. The old man will begin again.

Paul Nizovoy’s hook, “The Oceau,” will not please all tastes, but those attracted will find it as near perfect of its kind as a book can be. Woven into the story—not affixed- from without—are descriptions of the migrations of the salmon, the reindeer, and the Arctic mice; of seal hunting and travel through the Arctic winter. “THE PHOENIX' NEST.”

In “The Phoenix Nest,” Elizabeth Jenkins has succeeded in giving a convincing and colourful account of Elizabethan days. iShe tells the story of Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyn, that famous actor, who in his time played many parts—greatest amongst them perhaps was “TamburJaine.” There is a story built up around Henslowc and his two stepdaughters, Bess and Joan —the latter became the wife of Alleyn. Henslowc is a typical Jiguro of his time. A man who has amassed wealth in the byways of commerce and by exploiting tin? wits of other men. lie was, apparently, a sort of literary agent. lie invested money in plays by such men as Marlowe, Nash, and Robert Greene, and further contributed towards their production. Alleyn was his protege and proved a veritable goldmine. Miss Jenkins has told her story in narrative form. The domestic life of that latter half of the sixteenth century is intimately dealt with; and the almost incredible conditions under which people suffered the annual outbreak of plague make painful reading. A TALE HE THE ISLANDS. Julian Dana, an American writer in search of a subject, had the great good fortune to meet George Westbrook, an old Islands resident and stalwart champion of the natives, at Auckland, and such was the spell of the adventurous narrative to which he listened that a passage home was immediately cancelled, and Air Dana settled down to shape this autobiography into a book. “Gods Who Die” is the rich and varied result. Westbrook is perhaps unique in that be landed in the Marshalls at the age of 16, and has never left the Islands since, being trader, native prince, sailor, politician, and other things. lie knew Bully Hayes, trenchantly described as an utter craven as well as a despicable tyrant; Louis Bccke and other South Sea characters who have become famous. Ho lived on Pingalap, Uvea, Rotuma, Funafuti, and Arnho Islands, principally, at times without seeing another white man for months on end. Twice mined by storms, bo was also twice sli ip wrecked, and thus, in the very act of returning home to England, was prevented. Many incidents of the discreditable Uvean “Holy War,” waged against each* other by native converts to opposite religious beliefs, took place in bis sight and bearing; yet, be remarks, no white nmn was injured in the affray, hostilities ceasing when one wished to walk between the lines. The truth was that the natives enjoyed their war, especially as they had the use of firearms and used to bedeck themselves in tophuts and evening dress for the occasion of a battle. Many amusing, and some grim, tales, are told by Mr Westbrook.