RECENT FICTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23044, 21 November 1936, Page 4

RECENT FICTION

“None Turn Back.” By Storm Jame»on (Cassell). ' „ , , “A Prayer for My Son.” By Hugh Walpole (Macmillan). "Lights Are Bright.” By Anna D. Whytß (Hogarth Press). _ „ “ The Snare of the Fowler.’ By Gerald Bullett (Dent). „ ” Death at the President's Lodging. By Michael Innes (Gollancz). “Headed for a Hearse.” By Jonathan Latimer (Methuen). “Snatch.” By Virgil Markham (Crime Cl ub )- r. " Did She Fall? ” By Thorne Smith (Barker). " Murder to Music.” By W. H, Lane Crauforcl (Ward, Lock). (Each 7s 6d.) “ None Turn Back ” Storm Jameson’s; trilogy, “The Mirror of Darkness,” has been concluded with thejpublication of her latest novel, “ None Turn Back.” The- Anal instalment deals with an intensely interesting chapter in the history of England—the week of the General Strike of 1926 —but'it is in no respect a narrative of those excitingly unreal days in British industry. The serious note with which Miss Jameson distinguished her analysis of contemporary life at the outset has, if anything, been intensified in "None Turn Back,” with the result that the book will be appreciated mOst by those who like a sombre significance in their fiction. In fact, “None Turn Back” is so serious a piece of work that the author more than once becomes so absorbed in her subject that her style becomes obscure. The strikers, and particularly the miners and their leaders, are drawn with knowledge and insight, and the author’s careful and frequently purely academic discussions of the great issues of the time have been born of an obviously robust sympathy with the lot of the worker. The vivid pictures she presents of some of the conditions of squalor and sordid- . ness under which not only many unemployed, but large numbers of lowpaid regular workers, had to live in England, are irresistibly moving, and the convincing manner,in which she •makes her accusations against the system that allows such things gives her book a power that cannot be denied. The parallel treatment which Miss Jameson gives to a vital national problem on the one hand, and the individual history of her main character, Hervey Roxby, stamps her as a novelist of experience and quality. Her purely' personal digressions into the domestic .life of Hervey Roxby, her son by a-first marriage, and her somewhat difficult second husband, Nicholas, make “None-Turn Back” as. much a human-, document as a national one. Anyone”, interested meed not hesitate about*;" None Turn . Back ” on the. grounds'- that two of the series, have' »gone, bejforef Tt. .can very/, definitely stand; by. itself. '/■ ■ \

The Author; Margaret Storm Jameson was born at Whitby, Yprks., in 1897. and educated at private schools and Leeds University. She went to . the British Museum - onfi a research' scholarship to study n)oderft European drama, her thesis, “ Modern Drama in Europe,” being one of her first published works. She remained in London as an advertisement copy-writer and journalist, and . in 1920 her second novel, “Happy Highways,” attracted attention. This has been followed by a dozen books, including “The Voyage Home,” “Farewell to Youth,” and “A Richer Dust,” and “The Decline of Merry England,” in which she asserts that industrialisation has robbed the land of ease, spaciousness, and gusto. She is married, with one son, and lives at Whitby. Her recreations are walking, riding, and travelling. A Story Wlih » Moral? The locale of “A Prayer for My Son ” is Mr Walpole’s favourite Cumland Lake District, but the action mainly takes place within the confines of Scarfe Hall, the home of Colonel Fawcus. Naturally, therefore, the action 'is limited, but the story is not lacking in interest or in excitement. Primarily it concerns the awakening of mother love. Rose Clennell comes to Scarfe Hall to see her son, John, on the invitation of Colonel Fawcus, in whose care John had been placed shortly after birth and just after his' father’s death in Switzerland, 12 years before the story opens. John is born of an illicit love affair between Rose and Humphrey Fawcus, son of the colonel. The desire for her son which soon develops in Rose’s bosom is at first thwarted by John’s own attitude; his best friend, a rather unpleasant schoolboy, crudely informs John of his unfortunate position, and John has only a feeling akin to hatred for his mother, Rose’s position is none the happier because of vigorous opposition on the part of the colonel and his spinster daughter, Janet, incidentally the least convincing character, Rose, firmly determined to possess her son, in due season obtains his love, but her battle is far from complete. Dominating the entire scene is Colonel Fawcus, a man kindly and pleasant on first acquaintance, but one who quickly reveals himself as a supreme egoist and a tyrant of the worst type. The picture of the colonel, as presented by Mr Walpole, is a grim and forbidding one. and there is instilled into the book an under-current of terror that is reminiscent of “A Portrait of a Man with Red Hair.’ 1 It is perhaps possible to read more into . the story than Mr Walpole intends, but the frequent references to Colonel Fawcus’s behaviour and outlook on life as being in keeping with those of Hitler, Mussolini, and Goering, lead one to suspect that Mr Walpole is in a modest way stressing the possible effects on humanity of unopposed dictatorship. But Colonel Fawcus, able to cope with human difficulties through his own relentless power and with the aid of spying and eavesdropping servants, is eventually frustrated by the powers of NatureTi twi forms. The moral of it all ; appears to be that right must eventually triumph and a tyrant come to grief more or less through abuse of his position. Romance via New Zealand There is much that is admirable in Anna Whyte’s story of a voyage via Panama and Suva to New Zealand during which a romance blossoms and is nearly withered in its prime. Miss Whyte has one eye upon character, an observant and penetrating eye. and one upon the sights, sounds, and sensations of a long voyage, which offers some exotic and tantalising glimpses of exotic lands. Her description of life on shipboard, on a vessel carrying a dozen passengers, is excellent, and in tracing, through a dozen small incidents, the growing interest in each other of Alan Bray and Marian she shows a great sensitivity to the small beginnings on which love may build. In the storm at Suva “Lights Are Bright” reaches its dramatic height, and these passages could not easily be bettered. But from that time the author seems to lose her grip on a simple theme. The curious affairs of Mr Pleasant, the observations and experiences of Bray in acclimatising himself to New Zealand, the earthquake, and even the young Wellington reporter. who wanders into the concluding chapters, are all good enough material for the novelist, and certainly of some interest to Dominion readers, but their relevancy to the previous smooth consistency of the book is not great. A Tragedy of Chance In “ The Snare of the Fowler ” Gerald Bullett has presented one of the most terrible themes of Greek tragedy in a modem setting and with average men and women as the protagonists. The plot is not one which lends itself to simple restatement without the risk of giving offence and it may be a moot point whether the subject is one to be fittingly handled in such a way. There is, however, nothing in Mr Bullett s

craftsmanship to which exception could be taken. He has performed his exceedingly difficult task with entire competence, although it could not, be said that he has produced anything in the way of a tragic masterpiece. The writing is, indeed, almost too restrained, but this very economy is

necessary to preserve the prevailing tone of normality through the extreme coincidences of the story. The central character, Drusilla Moore, on whom the effect of a terrible experience in childhood brings stark tragedy in mature life, is a well-conceived figure and maintains a peculiar dignity throughout.

Ingenious Donnishness “Death at the President’s Lodging" is a poor, and rather misleading, title to a first-class mystery story with its setting in a university college situated midway between Oxford and Cambridge. Not every intelligent student of the detective tale can be expected to. know that college presidents live m “ lodgings,” and some- hnght assume that this story 'was, American, since United States Presidents at least have lodges. 'But that is by the way. No reader can'progress far in the book without concluding, first, that this is a very English story, and secondly, that it represents the height in academic ingeniousness turned _ to the problem of murder investigation. This is the opposition which Inspector Appleby is up- against when he comes to the college, to find how the president was murdered, when only half a dozen dons had access to the grounds: ■ Here was' a society of men much above the average in intelligence, the product of a variety of severe mental trainings, formidably armed with knowledge. The secret was hid- . den amongst them and intelligence ■ and athletic, thinking would be needed to reveal it. Appleby, fortunately, has a mind himself, precisely trained, and, suffering only , one assault by the way, he eventually discovers how,’by academic prankishness, a collection of pedants has become involved in various ways in a sensational crime or as accessories to it. The author, who calls himself Michael Innes, deserves very high marks for the way in which he complicates and isolates the main factors in this murder tale, and there are readers who will find his sketches of university types as much of a delight as the physical ramifleatioris of the tale.- m Chicago Crime Then'in “Headed for a Hearse” we have a mystery story which could have been written nowhere but in America, and in its different way is of equal merit with a good example of the English mystery novel. It is a world of Chicago gangsters, corrupt State employees, and neurotic people of wealth to which Jonathan Latimer introduces us. Westland is in the “ death house," with six days to live, when he decides suddenly that be does not want to die, and calls in an underworld lawyer to obtain evidence to clear him from a conviction for uxoricide. Most of the investigation is undertaken by a private detective, Crane, who only in his bibulous hours, which are many, believes he is a good investigator. His assistant, Williams sums up Crane s ostensible failings when on, page 220 he observes: “A good detective would have a Siamese postage stamp, a gold collar button, some peanut shells, and one of Jean Harlow’s garters as evidence by this time”: when Crane. In truth, still has nothing but his deductive powers and an alcoholic headache. However, Crane and Williams and their colleagues from the shadier side of Chicago gang and night-club life are an entertaining band of companions on a murder case, and they produce both- ribald humour and a clever solution before Westland’s last hour can be sounded. “ Snatch Racket ” Again in “ Snatch,” which is Yankee for kidnapping, the United States, through the dependable pen of Virgil Markham, provides a very acceptable example of crime fiction. The first 100 pages of this book, which describe a kidnapping for which .the motive is not clear, and a girl’s escape from the gang's refuge, are as exciting as one could wish for—almost literally breathtaking. From then on the pace is not quite so fast, since Mr Markham has some explaining to do, but this is a thriller that keeps moving rapidly and in a definite direction from first to last; nor must one neglect to acknowledge the excellence with which the author delineates the psychology of the heroine.

By Thorne Smith The last of the late Thorne Smith’s novels to receive English publication presents the old problem of a woman who deserved to be murdered, and was found dead at the bottom of a cliff; and so the question is asked in idiomatic language, “ Did She Fall? or was she pushed? Thorne Smith has a mildly salacious manner of dealing even with the least sinister and suggestive of situations, and one must assume this is, in most of his novels, the principal reason for their popularity among some readers. In “Did She Fall?” this characteristic is less in evidence than usual, and the elements of the plot are more closelyknit, without supernatural trimmings, than is customary. The result is a mystery story that has considerable merit in, the problem it sets and the solution afforded, and reminds us that this author knew something about human behaviour. “ Murder to Music ” This is a story of theatrical life in which the strange interactions of temperamental people are carefully exploited. Detective Kellerway is a somewhat unusual type of investigator, and the reader will come quickly to the conclusion that his tactlessness is a trifle over-emphasised. In the “You May Smoke” company there is quite an unusual amount of bad feeling between the leading actors, and each day sees it grow in intensity. During a performance an alteration is made among the leading actors, and in a stabbing scene one of them is killed. The question is: Was this an accident? It may have been, but piece by piece the detective —eccentric and lacking in tact —brings the ends of a sordid incident together, and the reader will be satisfied that murder was committed, and a piece of justice well administered, even were it in unlawful fashion. V. V. L. The Pathetic Poet The poet of to-day. remarks Clifford Dyment, is no longer tragic but merely pathetic. The mistress he courts is not now a maiden of nimble grace and delicate eyebrow, but a heavy-handed, dour person called Social Consciousness, who is difficult to get on with, anyway.