RECENT FICTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23500, 14 May 1938, Page 4

RECENT FICTION

Lord Samarkand.” By Horace Annesley Vacheli (Cassell). “ Saha the Cat.” By “ Colette.” (Werner Laurie). “The Silver Land.’ By J. M. Scott (Hodder and Stoughton). “ Taglioni’s Grandson.” By Peter Shiraeff (Putnam). “Death Under Gibraltar.” By Bernard Newman (Gollancz). “Mr Pendlebury’s Second Case.” By Anthony Webb (Harrap). “It’s Hell to be a Ranger.” By Caddo Cameron (Ward, Lock). 4s 6d. (Each 7s 6d, unless otherwise stated.) “ Lord Samarkand ” Mr Vachell’s latest novel, “ Lord Samarkand,” will send those who find pleasure in reading his work back to “The Hill.” This earlier book, now many years old, was an immediate success, and bears re-reading. It has its place beside “ Tom Brown’s Schooldays” and such stories. Mr Vacheli wrote a sequel, to which he gave the title “ John verney,” “ The Hill ' still commands a sale. Its sequel doe-s not. Evidently the reading public had no particular interest in the early manhood of the boys who had appeared in the previous book, which ■dealt with Harrow. Now we have been given a story in which the leading characters of “The Hill” have reached middle age. Lord Samarkand is Reginald Scaife, the Demon of Harrow days. He_ has, gone from ■success to success. His financial acumen, capacity for hard work, and bold methods have brought him to a position of power achieved by few. Yet, having to all appearance everything that can be desired, he is not happy. He drives forward, sweeping obstacles aside and overwhelming his foes. Men fancy that his heart sings merrily all the day. In reality, he is one who deserves our deepest pity. His wife is the daughter of a peer whom he married when Sir John Verney supplanted him in the affections of Sheila Desmond. But it is a loveless union, and he seeks comfort with other women whom he fancies for the moment. Lady Samarkand is a Catholic, and refuses to appeal to the Divorce

Court. Gerard Samarkand falls in love with Gloria Verney, the daughter of his father’s school-day enemy. John Verney. This serves to show the double clash between husband and wife, and father and son. That Gerard may attain his bride, Lady Samarkand finally agrees to divorce. The principal characters In the book are well drawn. The strength and ruthlessness of Reginald Scaife are depicted in a very fine way. But the enigma of his boyhood days remains, for he is often unexpectedly kind and decidedly humorous. His temper is sternly controlled, even under quite unusual provocation. Lady Samarkand’s is also a well-planned portrait Her patience in her trials —her husband is never brutal, nor does he hide from her any of his philanderings—her desire to protect Gerard from the unpleasantness attached to proceedings for divorce, and her final decision to take a most disagreeable step to safeguard Gerard’s future are described with skill. Gerard, too, is carefully drawn. Running all through the story is the Influence of Harrow, and most readers will, before they have read far into “ Lord Samarkand.” take down “ The Hill ” and refresh their memories. Mr Vachell has written more than one latest is pot • unworthy, in any sense, or two. worth-while novels, and his of his pen, “Saha the Cat"

There have been many varieties of the “ eternal triangle,” but herein “ Colette ” presents a new and entertaining version—a girl, a boy, and his cat, Saha. The girl. Camille, and the boy, Alain, are engaged, and we meet them just one week before their marriage is to take place. They are modern young Parisiennes, and after their marriage they sojourn for a few weeks in the roof-top studio of an absent artist friend. Alain, who is a pampered youth and somewhat morbid, broods over the absence of his beloved cat, and prevails upon Camille to admit the feline into their menage. Saha becomes the focal point of Camille’s jealousy, and her jesting barbs soon become acrimonious shafts which drive Alain to lavish an extraordinary affection upon his pet. Camille endeavours to slay the cat by hurling her from the roof, but Saha, using one of her proverbial nine lives, succeeds in clawing to an outstretched awning, and reaches terra firma little the worse for her involuntary descent. This episode creates an open breach between Alain and Camille, and in the concluding chapter we find Camille in full flight, headed for a fashionable resort, while Alain is back in the ancestral home with his first and only real love, Saha. “ Colette ” unfolds this diverting psychological study with all her usual grace and pungent brevity. Arctic Thriller

Mr J. M. Scott presents his readers with a vivid lesson in the geography of the frozen north in the form of an Arctic thriller entitled “ The Silver Land.” Everything, even the characters, is subservient to his discussion and consideration of Arctic climatic and geological conditions, and the manners and customs of some of tlm more primitive of the Eskimo peoples. That does not mean, however, that he has not succeeded in writing an absorbing book “ The Silver Land ”is intensely exciting from beginning to end, and the author has used every artifice and device at his command to sandwich human interest between his various treatises on Arctic conditions. The quaint beliefs and philosophy of the Eskimos, based essentially on common sense and the age-old law of the survival of the fittest, are thrown into bold relief by the dramatic adventures of a party of explorers who set out from the Hebrides to follow the trail of a strange man who is cast ashore in his. tiny boat on ah inhospitable Hebridean island. The quest develops into a search for an Arctic lost world, and ends with an enforced sojourn with Stone Age Eskimos and a hazardous trek across the ice cap to safety and civilisation. A Shangri-la touch is given to the story by the lastminute decision of the leader of the expedition to stay behind in what he regards as his Ultima Thule, and it is the manner in which he leads gradually to this point and finally presents it as a climax to his tale that Mr Scott discloses his talent as a dramatic novelist as well as a biographer of explorers. Trotting in Russia

Though it deals with the periods immediately before, during, and after the revolution in Russia, “ Tagliom s Grandson” achieves a certain distinction by being free from political bias, the oppression of the Czarist regime

being placed alongside that of the Bolshevists merely as a background for the story. And the story is mainly for horse-lovers. Flattery, a descendant of the great Orloff, which brought Russia into prominence alongside America as a home of the pacer, is receiving her preparation at the stud farm of a Russian nobleman when the great conflict bursts. Russia is turned topsy-turvey. Those who had never known the sight of a square meal are installed in office, while those who had watched their state of semistarvation without feeling grovel for scraps. The peasantry, however—by that term being comprehended the tillers of the land only—have merely exchanged one set of masters for another, with. no appreciably different degree of oppression, and into the hands of one such falls Flattery, now feeble and emaciated through privations endured at the hands of a succession of callous and indifferent owners. Her ultimate possessor, first through cupidity and later because of an innate love of horseflesh, treats the mare in a manner befitting her breeding, and it is through her son, sired by a noble stallion and born at the cost of her life, that the great Orloff is once more justified. This is a tragic story, spoiled somewhat through a superabundance of annotation, but it has a depth of feeling which marks its author, now unfortunately dead, as a devout worshipper of the pacer. ° ur copy is from Whitcombe and Tombs. Bernard Newman In Spain The days preceding the civil war in Spain provide the panorama against which Bernard Newman’s latest drama is played.. As usual, he provides an authentic background to a fanciful adventure, and “ Death Under Gibraltar is as absorbing and as thrilling as any of his other much-discussed books. The report of his own death from a lonely village in Spain sends the nar-rator-hero hurrying from London to investigate, and leads to the unfolding of a dramatic Fascist plot against the supremacy of Gibraltar. The mythical “Apes Tunnel,” which legend says connected Africa to Spain, plays an important part in the Fascist scheme, and It is here, with his temporary gipsy wife, that the narrator plays the winning cards in his latest adventure. Septuagenarian Sleuth Mr George Pendlebury, a septuagenarian with a weakness for solving murder mysteries, created a favourable impression in “Verdict Without Jury,” in which the author, Anthony Webb, introduced one of the oddest 01 fiction sleuths to the public. This time Mr Pendlebury is a guest at Beechwood,” the home of Sir James Brokewood, when two murders are committed. Inspector Wagstaffe, of Scotland Yard, whom Mr Pendlebury helped on the previous occasion, is assigned to the case, and is by no means displeased to see the old man, but therest of the police force show no enthusiasm for Mr Pendlebury’s interference. However, their opinion undergoes a change when Mr Pendlebury, through his own peculiar reasonings, solves the mystery. “Mr Pendlebury’s Second Case" is a very readable and entertaining story. The Fighting Banger* The Texas Rangers boasted some “ tough ” members, but few as tough as “Badger” Coe and “Blizzard” Wilson. Consequently, when trouble came to Whirlwind County, this two-man army was sent out to restore peace. The author, Caddo Cameron, is apparently of the opinion that his characters should not wear guns merely for visual effect, and his two heroes fight their way through this lively tale in the manner which delights all readers of Western fiction. V V L