THREE NEW NOVELS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20229, 13 April 1929, Page 7 (Supplement)

THREE NEW NOVELS.

A STUDY OF FEAR. " Cold Feet." by Terence Mahon. (Chapman and Hale). " Predestined," by Anne Duflield. (Murray!. " Plnnsuro rets." by F. E. Bailey. (Cassell). " Till I heard a bessar shouting out for Quarter as ho rail. An' 1 thoncht I knew tho voice and—it was me!" These lines from Kipling's " That Day," with their wonderful reproduction of the spirit of blind panic make a kind of running accompaniment to the terrible and pitiful story of " Cold Feet," which purports to be tho actual document written by an officer in the war, who was condemned to bo shot for cowardice. There is a conclusion by a Koman Catholic priest who was with him at the end. Whether or not. tho book is fact or fiction, its sincerity is as unmistakable as its power. It is tho study of a naturally timid boy whose weakness was accentuated by being sent in his extreme youth to a preparatory school of the worst type. Indeed, tho description of Miss Akroyd's poisonous system is almost more painful than the latter part of the book. Side by side with his natural cowardice grew up a fatal power of self-deception which, never understood by others, caused his explanations to be regarded as cold-blooded lying and hypocrisy. Tho incident of his first public showing of the white feather, the breaking of his engagement, and his crowning act of desertion in a charge—tho whole forms a logical sequence as inevitable as the march of a Greek tragedy. Then comes a slackening of tho tension and with a touch of the supernatural a strange and lovely ending to redeem the pitiful failure of his life. " Cold Feet" is a book that will Search the hearts of its readers and leave them with the chastening thought that " there, but for the grace of God, or the luck of life, goes any ono of us."

Tho exotic charm of " Tho Lacquor Couch," Miss Anno Duflicld's first book, inado readers look forward with eager expectation to her second. But " Predestined" is very disappointing. One never quite believes in tho exquisitely beautiful Bellairs girls, indeed it scerns as though even their creator felt the strain of maintaining the note of mystery and supernatural suggestion with which the family is introduced. Vet there is charm in the picture of an English country house, seen through tho eyes of a very urban Parisienne —charm in the glimpses of the French convent school so remote from all worldly contacts. It is only when Valerio Bellairs marries a naval officer and accompanies him to China that tho very distinct superiority of The Lacquer Couch" is noticeable. The reader grows tired of tho intense Valerie's reactions to Chinese associations, and can only marvel at the patienco of her devoted husband. There is material in the book for a colourful film scenario, but admirers of " Tho Lacquer Couch" looked for something with more relation to real life.

Tlio marriage service lias been described as a ceremony that begins with ''dearly beloved" and ends with amazenient. Such a definition would surely suit 1110 wedding of Ann Cosway to Grcvillc Chard. Ann, the epitomo of everything beautiful, young and heartless, is the central figure—heroine would be too obviously a misnomer—of " Pleasure Pets," a book which, despite its rather feeble title, is as brilliant a portrait of a modern young lady of high degree as any painted by more celebrated artists. " Don't take it so seriously, darling," says Ann, 1o her husband after the ceremony. " Remember wo said it all under duress. We couldn't start arguing with tho bishop about his own marriage service, in the middle of it. All that means nothing. You shall have a perfectly nice divorce any time things get too much for you." Greville Chard, Ann's nico young man, has all our sympathy, yet does ho deserve it ? The nice young men who marry the Anns of this world arc asking for trouble and their request is generally granted.