RECENT FICTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23649, 5 November 1938, Page 4

RECENT FICTION

" Onward, Trolley! " By Gene Fowler. (Dent.) " The Lonely Road." By Jeffery Farnol. (Sampson Low.) " Dreamland." By Clarence Budlngton Kelland. (Barker.) "Maiden Voyage." By R. L. Dearden. (Jenkins.) "Beau Masque." By H. M. E. Clamp. (Joseph.) "Love in Two Keys.' By Lewis Cox. (Hutchinson.) "Maverick Money." By Charles M. Martin. (Nicholson and Watson. 4s Gd. " Don't Let Them Burn "; " The Murder Special "; " The Dealer of Death "; by Fred Mclsaac; "Murder in the Hurricane." by Eustace L. Adams. (Methuen.t Each lOd. (Each 7s 6d, unless otherwise stated.)

Introducing Trolley An author of the stamp of Mr Fowler inevitably invites comparison and as inevitably evades it. In this novel he has something of the spirit of "Beachcomber," but he is not " Beachcomber," nor any other. He is an original, an innovator. " Onward, Trolley," has an enormous vitality. It is.bursting with its author's ideas. Page after page contains incidents sufficient to bolster out a whole book by a more parsimonious writer. Mr Fowler has a reckless prodigality' that will endear him to the reader used to getting just seven and sixpenceworth of thoughts for his three half-crowns. The tale is of the eccentric Captain Trolley, a gallant relic of pioneering days, who, in a Rocky Mountain metropolis, wages a magnificent battle to preserve the soirit of the pioneering nineteenth century days from the invading, suffocating commercialism of the twentieth. His opponent, Colonel Steele, the town's ruling millionaire, though even older than Captain Trolley, is the incarnate spirit of twentieth century materialism. They are opponents for a number of reasons, including some very mysterious happenings in the dim past, which have their repercussions in the present. So, when Colonel Steele is found murdered after the Great Blizzard, suspicion, in the best tradition, is cast in all directions. The plot is sufficiently well worked out to give the book' some suspense, though if judged by the standards of a pure

detective story, it would have to. be admitted that Mr. Fowler does not play fair. He withholds essential information from ; the reader so that there is no contest of wits, or possibility of guessing the solution. Such standards, however, are not applicable. This is not really a detective story. It is a magnificent gallery, of portraits, a Middle-Western "American Scene." This crazy collection of thugs, pickpockets, crooked detectives, swindling politicians, and mainly dishonest lawyers, could only have been located west of the Statue of Liberty. The characters are drawn with a rich fertility of invention which stamps Mr Fowler as a true creator. Dr Thumb, the anthropologist, Moussa, the Mohammedan pickpocket, Morton Kilgallon, the journalist, and, of course, Captain Trolley, are the pleasantest of them, and the genuine affection they one and all inspire is a testimony to the skill.of the writing. Mr Fowler is rare among American novelists in that he loves more than he hates. Even the rogues are not quite withered up in his pages. He does not detest them sufficiently to swing the reader's bias very far against them. That may be a moral defect in his outlook, but we have had so much crusading lately that the author's general geniality is a very refreshing change. He observes, he reports, with delicious accuracy, but he does not condemn. The result is an immensely readable book, and one that will leave the reader greedy for more from the same pen.

The Author: Gene Fowler was born in the Rocky Mountains. He entered journalism as a sports v/riter, and held responsible positions in the New York .newspaper field. He has acted as manager to boxers and wrestlers, and conducted the late Queen Marie of Rumania on her American tour. Eventually he made his way to Hollywood, to become » one of the highest paid scenar- ' ists, and " rewrite" man to the actress Carol Lombard. He has been touring New Zealand recently. "The Lonely Road" Jason Wayne, the hero of Mr Farnol's thirty-ninth novel, is in bad odour with authority when the tale opens, 'or was he not out with Mar and Derwentwater, ay, and was first to charge his Majesty s troops in their damned rebel ranks. Since when he hath turned highwayman and cut-throat, a notorious malefactor, and the sooner his rogue's head is spiked above Temple Bar the better

i is in this beliel—and to obtain the reward of 5000 guineas offered by his uncle—that Charles Warrender sets out to track Wayne down. But in truth the only offence of Wayne was to be loyal to his friends, severe with those who deserved harsh treatment, in the Jacobite rising of 1715. Honoria Warrender, "a maid so voung and solitary,' 1 is the first to discover the truth about Wayne when, following her brother, she meets the fugitive and perforce must join him in the woodlands and valleys of his nativs Sussex, while the red-coats search for him. The Romany people, smugglers and highwaymen, prove their friends, while they endure great perils together, and withhold the declaration

of a refined love. But Mr Farnol knows his public too well to disappoint their fondest hopes and expectations. They can read on in this romantic story to the end, confident that a mystery will be cleared up to the benefit of the noble lovers, and only the darkest-dyed villains will be punished. Our copy of "The Lonely Road" is from Whitcombe and Tombs Man or Mouse?

The fame of another writer in genre, Clarence Budington Kelland. is related by his English publishers to that successful film "Mr Deeds Goes to Town," which is a title familiar in most English-speaking lands. But Mr Kelland was very well known in his own United States as the creator of very likeable characters, amusing situations, and compact epigrams, for many years before Mr Deeds carried his fame abroad. Indeed, many readers of " Dreamland," hfis latest work to issue from London, will find difficulty in visualising his central character, Hadrian Pink, except in the habiliments and with the dark, expressive eyes of Mr Eddie Cantor, who once frolicked through a film loosely based on this story. Hadrian, they will recall, took a correspondence course which was to transmogrify him from a timid, mousey fellow, whom the men punched and the girls snubbed, into a Man. And they may also recollect that a fun fair called " Dreamland" was the scene of his greatest trials, and his greatest triumphs. At this stage story and film rather tend to part company, but the original, as now presented, is done with Mr Kelland's usual shrewd and homely skill, with the regulation number of smart wisecracks and comebacks, and a lovely girl to spur Hadrian on througn the rigours of his regenerative process. Square-rigger Days'

Commander Dearden's " Maiden Voyage" is a book which contains in its pages the authentic flavour of the life under sail, and enough excitement provided by the natural elements, and unnatural treachery aboard the Lady Loretta, to satisfy most readers who feel the romance of the racing woolclippers stirring them as they comfortably dream over the fire. The Lady Loretta, with the master's beautiful and headstrong wife as super-cargo, is bound for Sydney on her maiden voyage, and there are many reasons why she should do the voyage in record time. She sights the heads within the 70 days of the captain's ambition, but in that short period have been included manslaughter, attempted murder, and the hardships and dangers whidh, as Miss Tennyson Jesse says in her introduction, "the old square-sail men took as a matter of course, with much grumbling, without any sense of heroism, but with a courage that lifts the heart." Our copy of the book is from Whitcombe and Tombs.

Bandit Blood The author of "Beau Masque" has contrived a most romantic and confusing situation for her heroine, the lovely and sophisticated Quil Mander. Quil, to her own intense chagrin, falls in love with a masked gunman, who conducts a one-man raid on the night club at which she is a guest. He takes her jewellery—and a kiss. She can forgive the one theft, but cannot reclaim the other. Determined to forget her mysterious lover, Quil marries Tony Castleray, the nonchalant and individual holder of an old title. It is only when she discovers, in the history of his family, that one of Tony's ancestors had been a highwayman, and when she has learned,, further, that chivalrous banditry is strong in his blood, that she finds the peace and happiness most readers will_wisn for. "Beau Masque" is from Whitcombe and Tombs. By Lewis Cox

A situation not unfamiliar in common experience provides Lewis cox with the theme and title of Love in Two Keys." It is the old story of the girl who. when she marries, feels a Foyalty to the family from whose house she has departed, and of the husband, who expects her to make all other interests and loyalties subsidiary to her duty to and love for him. Ann's is an extreme case, since she takes it as her duty to spend the greater part of the day, when her brothers and sister are at.work in keeping house for them. When John discovers her unselfish deception their ouarrels on an old score culminate in a separation. Mr Cox finds a sane and satisfactory solution to the problem that he develops.

Out West Lass Winton, the young owner of the Flying W Spread finds his Old friend Bowers, owner of a neighbouring ranch, dying in the Devil's Kitchen, in the badlands of Arizona. Bowers confesses to a killing which has made Lass a fugitive from justice, and this releases- him to avenge a wrong done to his friend, to vindicate himself, and to win the hand of Sally Bowers in marriage. Mr Martin is in his usual form in "Maverick Money." " Sovereign Thrillers " Four more lively American thrillers, published in London. in a paper-cov-ered edition at a low price, are added to the "Sovereign Thrillers" series Three are by Fred Mclsaac, who possesses a fertile imagination and Quite a flair for keeping the pace hot. though his literary graces are negligible, me fourth, "Murder in the Hurricane, concerns hair-raising adventures in a vacht in the Caribbean. V. V. Ij.