THE LATEST NOVELS

Southland Times, Issue 24249, 5 October 1940, Page 9

THE LATEST NOVELS

Summer Holiday AUGUST IN AVILION. By Ella Monckton. Hodder and Stoughton, London, through W. S. Smart, Sydney. Price 9/- net. The opening sentences of this book will cause experienced readers to settle more comfortably in their chairs and to prepare for a fireside communion with attractive people. Such early hopes are quickly realized when Jane Gates and her four children (.become installed in an old house on the Cornish coast where surprising and amusing things are bound to happen. Chance and accident provide the elements of a most unusual house party. A young and handsome poet, a runaway wife, a schoolboy friend, an expectant mother and an uncle of the painfully “hearty” type are installed at short notice. . A chivalrous young man and various local personalities hover on the fringe of the household. Entrenched in the kitchen area are two old and shabby retainers who refuse to be expelled from the premises. And to complete Jane’s worries a ghostly visitor glides up the stairs in the dusk and departs in the dawn. With so many different types thrown together, it is not long before the Gates children find ample scope for imaginative variations on their holiday theme of King Arthur and the Round Table. Miss Monckton understands the child mind, and knows how to make her young people as natural as they are entertaining This is certain to be one of the most popular ! novels of the season. Urchins in Trouble CHARLEY IS MY DARLING. By Joyce Carey. Michael Joseph, London, through Whitcombe and Tombs. Price 8/9. This novel introduces a new type to English fiction: the Cockney “vackie,” transplanted from London streets to a country village in the early days of the war. Charley Brown is an imaginative and precocious youngster, eager to gain the respect and admiration of his fel-

lows, and capable of reckless deeds when the mood is on him. He becomes the ringleader of a little gang that worries the neighbourhood. At first they are satisfied with a petty pilfering; but later Charley wins a brief notoriety as the youngest cat burglar in England. Joyce Carey depicts these events as they appeal- to the adolescent mind. She understands children, especially street arabs, and some of her explanations of impulses that seem either mad or inexplicable to an outsider are little masterpieces of applied psychology. Her treatment of the relationship between Charley and the unfortunate Lizzie, who is to be a mother at 15, is in a vein of realism that leads to a genuine pathos. This is not a book for conventional readers, but there is more than a touch of greatness in it. New Westerns (1) TURBULENT ‘GUNS. By Drake C. Denver. Wright and Brown, London. Price 5/6. (2) THE CATTLE BARONS. By J. E. Grinstead. Wright and Brown, London. Price 5/6. (3) THE LONESOME KID. By Lewis C. Merrill. Hutchinson, London. Price 5/6. All through Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd. These three new Western novels are very good value at the price. Mr Den-, ver’s story begins in an abandoned hut on the Mexican border, where Rio Jack Golden comes to the rescue of a lady in distress. The guns become very turbulent indeed, before his task is completed. The hero of “The Cattle Barons” is a young Texas ranger who throws in his lot with Bema Truman of the Glorieta ranch. The owner of the ranch, her uncle, wants her to marry a man whom she knows to be a murderer. Their enmity develops into open warfare, and Mr Grinstead provides enough shooting and fighting to satisfy anyone. The plot of “The Lonesome Kid” also is a struggle between ranchers and cattle thieves. Dan, the Lonesome Kid, is hired by the owner of the L C Bar to protect his cattle from a gang of outlaws. Dan wins the last battle and finds himself elected sheriff of the county.