RECENT FICTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23951, 28 October 1939, Page 4

RECENT FICTION

The Hunter Hunted Those who read “The Third Hour” and “ The Salvation of Pisco Gabar ” (the latter a volume of short stories) will have recognised in Mr Household a novelist of quite exceptional equip: ment. In “Rogue Male” that opinion is more than confirmed. Mr Household again reveals the fertility of his inventive powers in. the employment of several unusual devices. The central figure in this extraordinary tale of a man-huqt tells of his experiences without ever disclosing his identity. That he is a person of importance in his own country, England, is confessed. Whom he sought to destroy in Europe, with the object of removing the gravest threat to the world’s peace, is also made plain without the use of names either of people or of countries. Who his pursuers were when his carefullylaid plans were exploded is again apparent. as a matter of simple deduction. The hunter is hunted literally to earth in a remote corner of rural, England, there—as was the intention—to be put quietly out of the way without arousing the interest-of police or newspaper press. There was, indeed, none to whom he could appeal for protection, his sole reliance, in the avoidance of capture, being on his native ability. His triumph in the end is a personal,' If purely negative, one, and he survives the thrilling and wholly amazing ordeal of pursuit with will uhdiminished to try the game again. Mr Household’s story at times strains credulity, but it definitely does not at any stage lose its grip on the imagination. It has genuine quality as a piece of romantic fiction. Nice, People The fault, dear Brutus, Is In ourselves,' not in Mr Benson, that we miss in '“Trouble for Lucia” what we enjoyed in “Dodo.” It is debatable whether there is anything in "Dodo” more Bensonian than the following from “ Trouble for Lucia “ Susan probably doesn’t feel up to writing after the loss of her budgerigar. She had

a sodden and battered look this morn--4 fog, didn’t you think? —like a cardV;board box that has been,:out'in the ; rain. l Flaccid. Wo resilience,” This Is not the first novel by Mr Benson that has treated of Lucia Pillson. I,ike David Blaize, she carries on from one volume to another. She goes from strength to strength, it appears, for in the story under consideration she becomes Mayor of Tilling. Tilling is a pleasant town in Hampshire, where, one feels, it would be very agreeable to spend a long week-end. “Let not ambition mock their useful toil, their homely joys and destiny obscure," wrote Thomas Gray of the Stoke Pages confraternity. Ambition certainly does rear its head at Tilling, but not of a virulent order. If one has the impression that Mr Benson is just a trifle stiff in the hands as he manipulates this latest set of puppets, one is glad to allow that he creates some genuinely comic positions. • It was ingenious of him to stage a renaissance of the push-bike at Tilling. “ Daisy Bell" suggests itself as a kind of subdued motif, and there are times when we could almost believe ourselves bade in the naughty nineties. More power to E. F. Benson, who once, on his ojvn admission, was regarded as the, fool of the family! Ha has outlived his brother, Arthur Christopher, whose novels are extinct, which cannot be said of “Dodo” in this instance. He has outlived his brother, Robert Hugh, whose novels were once described as an insidious form of tract. Neverthei, less, one ventures to think that Father Benson was happier in writing “The Sentimentalist ” than was “E. F.” in concocting his latest divertissement.

“The Counsellor” Mr Connington’s new investigator is 1 a flashily-dressed young man of wealth, who conducts a weekly “Voice of Experience” broadcast to the United Kingdom from Radio Ardennes. A request from a listener for assistance in tracing a girl who had driven off to play tennis and failed to arrive, engages his attention. By car and private aeroplane, and by a series of ’deceits as well, the Counsellor intrudes himself into the activities of a number of malefactors who conduct a country press for the making of fine prints. In i the course of his researches he ’/ery nearly has his life terminated by the same super-ingenious means that have ..already proved successful once, Mr i Connington is well, informed on such diverse subjects as obscure drugs, carbon monoxide poisoning and the legal aspects of marriage at Gretna Green. He , works, hard in this story, but it proves somewhat tedious,, unless an involved-mystery-is. of more .importance to the reader than the credibility of characters and situations alike.

"Rogue Male.” By Geoffrey Household (Chatto and Windus). “Trouble for Lucia.” By E. B’. Benson (Hodder and Stoughton). “Next to .Valour.” By John Jennings (Hamilton), 10s 6d. “Challenge for Three” By’David Garth (Hale), “Golden Girl.” By Barbara Hedworth (Mills and Boon), “The Counsellor” By J. J. Connington (Hodder and Stoughton). “Street Paved With Water.” By Robin Temple. “ Night Riders.” By .Gladwell Richardson (Ward, Lock), 4s (id. Each 7s 6d unless otherwise stated.

American History “ Next to Valour,” a first novel by the 28-year-old author, John Jennings, is impressive whether judged by length or by quality. Its pages run to nearly 900, its story moves with a rhythmical sweep over the whole of that distance. In the early chapters the reader follows the fortunes of the Scottish family of young James Ferguson, caught up, on the Jacobite side, in the ill-starred rising of the Forty-five. As a direct consequence of that .tragic loyalty James and his mother arid sisters emigrate to America, abandoning for ever the Perthshire Hall, the Lairdship of Kintulloch, and the privileges attaching thereto. In New Hampshire the depleted family—the father had died at Culloden—early experienced the rigours of life in the backwoods. James was trained in woodcraft and scouting, and many times in the, disturbed years that followed had reason to be grateful for the thorough methods of his .Indian teacher. The tale moves slowly, yet never without excitement, through the long campaigning against both Indian raiders and the French, until it reaches its culmination in the historic siege of Quebec and its ultimate fall to Wolfe’s army—a drama in which Jarnes Ferguson, now grown to manhood, was destined to play a dangerous and important part. On the domestic side the narrative revolves around the toohasty marriage of Jamie to the selfseeking daughter of a colonial lawyer, his belated discovery of her faithlessness in association with a wastrel ■cousin of his own, arid his eventual attainment of a true happiness: with another. In between-.are accounts of backwoods jouirneys, undertaken by Jamie for the survey of country, the securing of pelts, or in a military capacity as a scout in a corps of rangers during the war against the French. Throughout there is abundant evidence of Mr Jennings’s knowledge both of his period and of the fascinating lore of the forest. “ Next to Valour ” takes reading, but more than .repays the reader’s effort. Our copy Is from Whitcombe and Tombs.

Play-Girl This is a tale of a poor little rich girl, but with a new and rather more real sort of poverty. It also contains a red-blooded he-man, though he hides, not too deeply, under the mask of a teacher of history. There is a rather complicated love, story, as well as a number of gangsters, and the scene is set in the United States of America. It will thus be seen that “Challenge for Three” contains all the necessary ingredients for a lively light novel. And the material is very entertainingly handled. Fontaine Shaw, a “ playgirl” of both sides of the Atlantic, and amateur smuggler just for the hell of it, is left high and dry by her adoring arid exceedingly wealthy grandfather, in that gentleman’s ingenious last will and testament. In the hope of making a woman of her, if one can so twist the term, he leaves the heir to £20,000,000 exactly £lO a week for the next 10 years, with a proviso that the trustees are to subsidise her earnings dollar for dollar. As a result, she very naturally gets deep into debt, tries gambling, and then smuggling, professionally,! this time,, and finally ends up in the iclutches of a gangster endearingly named Ben Turgott. However, all comes right,in the end. There are one.br two s'plashes of* sentiment, but apart from these this is a very enjoyable, book,'everi if of d definitely unsubstantial sort. Our copy is from Whitcombe and Tombs. Young Lord’s Lady Shirley Steyning’s story is just at a beginning when the young and attractive Lord Finne whisks her out of a nursing home and makes her his bride. For although her erstwhile colleagues among the nurses call her enviously “Golden Girl," she has difficulties in plenty to face when she is taken to Finne’s ancestral home, and finds herself unfitted for her role in society, and patronised by her husband’s friends. One in particular—a woman, of course—almost persuades her that she can never take her place with credit at her husband’s side. But she overcomes all obstacles', and we leave her in the courtyard at Buckingham Palace about to make a radiant curtsey to their Majesties. “ Street Paved with Water ” The proceeds of a number of jewel robberies are leaving London by a route which is not the usual one, and Hugh Robinson of the C.I.D. goes down to Deadman’s Quay to find out what is really happening. The discoveries he makes are not at all such as he expects. Mr and Mrs Love are a wonderful couple whose generosity is much praised by the people who use the Thames. Robinson is lured along a trail which might have meant his death, but Patsy, of the barge Daffodil, saves him and as a result of this attempt on his life Robinson finds out where the spoils are kept and how they are removed from England.

Well-planned Conspiracy “Night Riders” is the story of a carefully-planned and systematic series of train robberies. The opening is dramatic —a buckboard coming across Red River into Adobe, Texas,, at a steady trot, the driver lolling dead in his seat. “ Oklahoma ” Kildare has just ridden in when it is found that the dead man was a United States marshall named Oldyrod, who had asked Kildare to come and help him in a dangerous venture. Later. “ Oklahoma ” is himself shot very seriously. That was the mistake the conspirators made, for it drew his attention to their house of entertainment. Recovering, he set out to discover the methods used by the gang and piece by piece obtained the information on which to act, in a general “ clean up ” of the bad country. V. V. L.