CURRENT LITERATURE

Taranaki Daily News, 3 May 1933, Page 15

CURRENT LITERATURE

RECENT PUBLICATIONS. “The Case of the April Fools,” by Christopher Rush. The case in a thousand; even Ludovic Travers of Durangos is hoodwinked, Spence of the Evening Record is made a pawn, and Chief Inspector Norris only arrives at the solution through a more than usually brilliant brain-wave. In the killings of Courtney Allard and Charles Crewe there is much more than meets the eye, and mystery reigns supreme. Both are found dead in the same room, the one stabbed and the other shot, all in a couple of minutes, with Travers actually on the spot and yet baffledmade an April Fool, for it all happens on that day. But for all that, Travers maintains his reputation and Norris digs doggedly for evidence, cross-examining the guests at “The Covers” very thoroughly. They are a queer lot, an acting crowd, and mostly from the States, and who is the mysterious. Chinaman Wen Ti? Who too is Charlie Crewe? Where is the automatic? What did the marks on the wall mean, and who hid in the wardrobe? The unravelling of the mystery keeps interest eager. The simple solution Is there all the time, but the author’s rapid pace in furnishing clues thoroughly intrigues the reader till the real facts are made- plain. “The Devil Rides High,” by Clarence Winchester. A great story with English, German and French adventurers into the Arctic as’ background to a powerful theme—the effect of jealousy, in which the ambition of Wark Shadwell, the passion of Sheila Forrest, the wonderful humanity of Father Simon, the menacing hatred of von Wilderstein, and the happy psychology of Tim Mitchell all combine to make a living panorama of real humanity. The author writes vividly and with conviction, moving his life-like characters across the arena of drama and romance, and showing the strange. effects of suspicions and apprehensions on their various lives. The sudden and unexpected intervention of Sheila Forrest in the lives of several men under conditions of suffering and hardship reveals the inevitable human responses which provide conflicts of overpowing passions.—lt is a remarkable and unusual book. “Painters Despair,” by Anne Green. Claire Villebreton, an artist fresh from the bustle of Paris, goes to stay in her grandmother’s chateau, the centre of the peaceful but highly social life of a remote Normandy village. There she .meets Antoine Dormond, son of a neighbouring squire who desires, for financial reasons, that his.boy shall marry Claire. It will be a marriage of convenience, after the approved French style. How Claire and Antoine react to the suggestion, what part pique, intrigue and love play in the ensuing drama, and an unexpected turn of events at the end, are the elements of this brilliant story by a brilliant writer. Miss Green writes in the pleasantest and easiest of styles, and in her hands a good story like the present becomes one of those gripping novels that the reader finds impossible to lay down..