RAPID REVIEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19608, 9 April 1927, Page 7 (Supplement)

RAPID REVIEWS.

" Blind Corner," by Dornford Yates (Hodder and Stoughton). " Traitor's Gate," by Edgar Wallace {Hodder and Stoughton). " Lovo Lies Dreaming," by C. S. Forrester (Tho Bodley Head). Whero is the Yates of yester year? Sealed is the flow of light badinage, vanished the romantically sudden love episodes, fled the high-born tpecimens of male and female beauty; and out of the fire of their destruction rises a veritable phoenix, the author of " Blind Corner," a swiftly moving tale of buried treasure, told with force, directness and economy of phrase. Not the most impassioned admirer of Mr. Yate's earlier work could have called it. breathlessly exciting, but " Blind Corner" is just that. In following the duel of wits between virtue, in the person of the resourceful Mansel, and " Ross " Noble, the very able villain. We never' miss the banished " love interest." Well-done, Mr. Yates! But will his flapper public approve of the change ?

| The truth of Abraham Lincoln's famous I remark to tho effect that you can't fool all the people all the time," does not seem to be borne out by the experiences of some successful writers. William Le Queux and Edgar Wallace are cases in point. The more involved* their plots, the more slovenly the style and construction of their stories, the more eagerly their .obedient public rush up like the oysters " all eager for the treat." " The Traitor's Gate," tells, among : other things, of an attempt, partially successful, to abstract the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Tho heroine is si beauteous maiden of mysterious parentage —it is doubtful if even the author knows the secret of her birth—and the hero a gallant guardsman, who is drugged by his convict brother and impersonated while oil guard duty. Tho "subsequent proceedings " which include abduction, attempted murder and some pretty rescue work bv aeroplane, result in the recovery of the " second crown " before the news gets into the papers. Almost all the principal characters, good and bad, are obscurely related to one another and in the end seem to settle down in amity none the worse for their earlier differences. Mr. C. S. Forrester will be remembered as the author of " Payment Deferred," a first novel most justly described by one reviewer as a " striking study in suspense and terror." His secirin<3~- book. " Love Lies Dreaming," is also a most successful venture, but in a vary different stvle. This study of wedded love (" in the fifth vear of married life so dangerous to childless couftles ) / is, as a storv. of gossamer fragility yet so penetrating in its Insight, so full of tenderness and humour that one parts with real regret from the charming Constance and ( her. (nearly), nameless fcw&antL