REVIEWS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 424, 15 November 1930, Page 14 (Supplement)

REVIEWS

“YOUNG MAN OF MANHATTAN,” by Catherine Brush (Cassell). In every newspaper office there drifts in a some time or other a young man of above average ability but of below average character. Somehow this type of man neither succeeds nor fails but being generous of heart they endear themselves to those with whom they work and so comrades of the pen help the weak brother during his periods of lapse. But a newspaper career is a hard life and these men can seldom stand the pace unless they take hold of themselves or a lady takes them in hand. This is the material out of which Katherine Brush has fashioned a readable novel. A good insight into the newspaper world of New York is given and the trials and temptations of a journalist’s life in a metropolis are set forth without undue exaggeration. Toby McLean is the boy that hits the high spots and misses on the average, while Ann Vaughan has her feet on the ground. These two marry, drift and come together again by calamity’s fateful hand which causes Ann’s blindness through drinking some of Toby’s moonshine liquor. The minor characters are good and evidently the author has picked her characters from life. This novel is well worth the reading. H.C.J. “THE TIN TREE,” by James Quince (Hodder and Stoughton.) The story opens in France with two men in a tree cleverly built of steel for use as an O. Pip for some British artillery. A shell lands near enough to throw both men to the ground. The officer regains consciousness to find his attendant gunner behaving like a madman and crying “O God! Again!” Confidences come later and bring us into the details of the death of Sir Juan Montauban two years before. Jack Montauban, the gunner serving under another name, believes he killed him accidentally by jumping from a roof on to Sir Juan’s head. The coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of murder against Jack who had disappeared. This is the story told by Jack to his officer of the “tin tree” incident. A “blighty” sends the officer to London, where he is nursed by a young woman who was a servant in the house at the time of Sir Juan’s death. To complicate matters the officer is in love with the girl to whom Jack was engaged and who, thinking him dead, weds herself to the memory of him. Certain phases of the coroner’s inquiry bring home to two of them the probability of Sir Juan being dead when Jack fell on him. Jack gets leave and returns to London just at this moment and plunges us right into the mystery. We travel at high speed into *the ‘ English West Country after a few hair-raising experiences in London. Time and again a solution seems evident but no sooner is one person implicated than clear evidence of their innocence is forthcoming. Murder, however, will out and this time finality is reached. The denoument is a complete surprise. This is James Quince’s first novel. Of its type it is altogether admirable. The style is easy and pleasing, the characters are well drawn, the conversation is typical of that between persons of the various classes portrayed, and the whole story flows evenly in one broad stream. One would like to see the author fill his pen, or sit at his typewriter, and give us something entirely away from the wellbeaten track of murder with the subsequent ravelling and unravelling of many /tangles. H.G.G. “CHECKMATE,” by Sydney Horler (Hodder and Stoughton) is a real thriller with heaps of excitement. Sunshine and beauty and sinister schemes among gambling tables and crooks with a valuable necklace* for booty make for quick movement in the very familiar scene of the Riviera. Mary Mallory, the heroine of the piece, is a* pretty, innocent, independent English girl in need of augmenting her slender means. Very much against the wishes and advice of her bosom and wealthy friend, Jess Stevens, Mary becomes the companion of a mysterious woman who goes by the name of Comtesse Zamoyski. Jess fears all manner of evil from white slavery to murder. She cannot help worrying about her “mouse-kid” of a friend away among foreigners, and ultimately goes seeking her, thereby taking a part in the grand climax. The opening of Mary’s eyes to the real character of her employer comes very quickly as she discovers herself to be the dupe of a woman who is at the head of a band of crooks. She is to act as their decoy in securing a remarkable pearl necklace, the possession of a titled lady who is an inveterate gambler. Quick action on the part of lover and friend, crooks ud police. R journalist from the ranks of the British nobility and a typical French Secret Service agent makes a genuine thriller one naturally expects from such a skilful creator of exciting tales as Sydney Horler. The book ends happily in orange blossoms for two.

“THE MIDDLE WATCH,” by lan Hay and Stephen King-Hall (Hodder and Stoughton). Here is a jolly book of light comedy. The scene: H.M.S. Falcon. Personnel: The ship’s company or all that matter, the admiral of the fleet, the admiral’s lady, a female Mussolini, his daughter, who is developing the characters of the distaff side with modern slang thrown in, two other ladies, one of whom is an American actress, the other a rather insipid girl, very much in love, and the gentleman who occupies the major position on the dust cover, Marine Ogg. To tell the tale were a mortal sin. If on reading it you are not compelled to chuckle—see a doctor. H.C.J.