NEW NOVELS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22515, 24 September 1938, Page 22

NEW NOVELS

PSIKI The Thought-Reading Machine. By Andre Maurois. Jonathan Cape. 191 pp. (5/- net.) How charming, and how dreadful, are the possibilities of a device to penetrate and bring out the secret thoughts of others! Such was the nsvchograph which Denis Dumoulin Introduced to the Westmouth University in America and which, marketed under the trade-name S“psUd” gave the childlike sensationists of the States a new craze, a new pleasure, and appalling shocks. But the French are civilised, they recognised at a glance that this instrument of truth, whether used as toy or as tool, was a destroyer, certain to disrupt the whole fabric of social life and upset its delicate balances of expression and concealment. Even the Americans had to adopt—when they were in-vented-protective measures, witn the result that the owners of psychographs spent “many long boring hours of listening which furnished them with no information whatever concerning the victims of their curiosity. They eventually became disgusted and put their instruments aside.” M. Andre Maurois, with agile wit, makes his fantasy play between mockery and critical melancholy. THE PETS Living Aloud. By Winifred Arthur Barker Ltd. 315 pp. Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. This is an amusing first novel —a very deft picture of modern youth, racketing about, clever or aiming at cleverness, dabbling in art and dabbling in life. It is also an acute study of the difference between two families, governed by the sisters-in-law Grace Tremlitt and Caroline Prentis, Grace a determined manager, determinedly bright in manner, without intelligence to equal her determination, Caroline, on the other hand, large, sensible, tolerant, and kind. The children follow the paths of their will or their folly, not escaping the pains or missing the profit of their journey; but Grace does not, to thfr end, learn to understand them or herself better. “Yes, those are my children—the pets,” she cries on the last page. “Aren’t they a credit to their old mother.” Miss Agar’s is the last word: “No one contradicted her adjective.” This is a light novel, but its edges and points are sharp. RUTH The. Orange Lagoon. By Kenneth Champion Thomas. Peter Davies. 318 pp. One of the many novels that have originated in the world depression, this is also one of few that do not exploit it crudely for propagandist purposes,' but fairly link it with human and character. Gerald Waite was, impelled • partly by ill luck and partly by his social ideas to leave his wife, Edwina, to manage as best she could with half his capital and their child, Ruth. When he uncertainly established, himself again, with his social theories less urgent and his personal needs more, he prevailed upon Edwina to rejoin him and she agreed, mainly for the sake of Ruth; and the story develops into a very human study of contrary forces. As the book closes, it is clear to the reader that Gerald and Edwina have been held together, in the cross-currents of temperament and event, by the one strong and unselfish feeling they share, their love for the child. DEAD MAN’S SHOES Indigo Death. By Max Saltmarsh. Michael Joseph. Ltd. 319 pp. Through Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd. " This is a" spy thriller that earns the heartiest applause. Through his amazingly close resemblance, to Professor William Considine, Archie Lumsden was drawn into the adventure that began, quietly enough, with the duty of “doubling” Considine in his peaceful country retreat, while that brilliant secret agent carried out ; a mission in Germany. It was a mission of his own choosing: the British authorities knew only that Considine had wind of a plot that might wreck the Third Reich and the balance of Europe. When Considine was murdered, as he stepped off the Harwich boat on his return, his knowledge perished with him; and Archie Lumsden set off for Germany to pick up the dead man's • trail, almost literally in the

dead man’s shoes. The only clue to Considme’s secret was the scrap of paper found sewn into his coat, with six words written on it: Urd Verdande, Skuld, Tannenberg, Indigo Death.” And the rest is better read than told. QUEER AND BRIGHT The Theme Is Murder. By Gavin Holt Victor Goilancz Ltd. 303 pp. The private detective, Joel Saber, is described by his assistant, Tyler, as “a bit of a plodder ; Rn*./ is self-described as of “the school . of brilliant reasoning and swift deduction.” Until the progress of Mr Holt’s breezy, clever story modifies these descriptions for the reader, they will serve to introduce an amusing and capable team. Their task here is to protect the rich Luke Siegmund Darren, half-crazy with fear, against the threats of dreath under which he says he is living in his Wagnerian circus of a household. But it is not Siegmund that dies, it is his half-brother Sieg- - fried . . 1 . The story reaches a distinct, refreshing quality through the contrasts between its fantastic design and the hard-boiled narrative style of Ritzy. AFTER “SAPPER” Bulldog Drummond on Dartmoor. A novel, baaed on a atory by Sap- . per” and written by Gerard Fairlie Hodder and Stoughton. 254 pp. From W. S. Smart. Bulldog Drummond, with the aid | of Archie Longworth and Peter Dar-. rell, but handicapped by the presence of Phyllis, takes a big. hand in the astonishing and violent events of a night at a bogus sort of inn, tenanted by a sinister, Ipvely Russian and two or three other sinister but unlovely villains. At one stage villain Merridew finds unconscious the man he badly wants • to kill, villain Brown. So he. discreetly retires behind a curtain, twiddles his thumbs till Brown totters to his feet, and then leaps out to strangle him. Readers: who can swallow morsels like that, and , enjoy them will have a treat in this posthumous “Sapper” story—but only Fairlie “Sapper.” THE SWALES Haven’s End. By John P. Marquand. Robert Hale Ltd. 285 pp. Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. “The Late George Apley” showed what Mr Marquand can do when he strings his tall bow; this was a novel in a thousand. In “Haven’s End” he tries something much easier. It is a series of episodes illustrating the character and characters of the Swale family, who for generations lived in the great house. Haven’s End, built with the gold of a piratical ancestor. These Stories are dramatic, diverting, ' unusual, vivid, and written with unfailing dexterity. They are so good, in fact, that it is impossible not to wish that Mr Marquand had chosen to pack more into them. MELODRAMA BY DEKOBRA ■ Th> Widow with the Pink Gloves. By Maurice Dekobra. T. Werner Laurie Ltd. 230 pp. Readers accustomed to the exotic' romanticism of Dekobra’s novels will be refreshingly surprised by his latest. An English girl, just before, the Great War, manried an Austrian' officer. When war came, he was obliged, for reasons of military iih : telligence, to act the part of a traitorand to fall, in a thoroughly realistic pretence, before an Austrian firing , squad. Unhappily, Sybil could not be told that it was all a carefully worked trick. She believed Rudolf dead, and set herself to avenge him. It is her work as a'spy that creates; the exciting complications of this story and leads to the meeting .of husband-and wife again and so to the well arranged conclusion. MORE GUN COTTON Gun Cotton at Blind Man’s Hood. By Rupert Grayson. Grayson and Grayson. 384 pp. Through Whitcombe arid Tombs Ltd. This time Gun Cotton’s adventures lie at home. In Sussex, Gun picked up the trail that carried him into the, heart of the Fascist plot against England; and in Maria Slint, head of the deadly organisation of women spies, he ‘found a redoubtable antagonist. And when at last she was laid by the heels . - . . even then she had a trick to play. She had concealed poison in oqe of them. STIR IN -THE VILLAGE Much Dithering. By Dorothy Lambert. Collins. 253 pp. Miss Lambert’s book is a comedy, with some criminal excitement thrown in. The scene is the village of Much Dithering. The characters are distributed evenly enough be-, tween high estate and low; and some of the comedy arises from the. disposition of certain ones to move out of their stations. A Christmas burglary gives the story its greatest jolt; its jollity is perpetual. “TAFFRAIL” Operation ‘M.O.’ By Taflrail (Captain Taprell Dorling. D. 5.0.). Hodder and Stoughton. 288 pp. From W. S. Smart. This is a perfectly good “Taffrail” thriller, with dashes of comedy. The plot begins to move with the theft of an important naval document and rises to its climax when Inspector Henry Titmuss, of the Yard, completes his pursuit on the destroyer WhimbreL

The Rajah of Aundh, ruling prince of a state in the Bombay Presidency, is the author of The Ten-Point Way to Health (J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd. 112 pp. 2/6 net.), a book which expounds a system of physical culture based on a selective diet, fasting, and the exercises known as Surya Namaskars. These, besides being clearly described, are photographically illustrated. The latest fiction received recently, reports the librarian of the Canterbury Public Library, includes three outstanding historical novels: “Maelstrom,” by E. V. Timms, author of “Conflict,” Vincent Sheean’s “A Day of Battle,” dealing with the middle eighteenth century and mainly the battlefield of Fontenoy, and Pat Lawler's “The House of Templemore,” the period being the pioneer days of New Zealand. Other good novels are “The Doomsday Men,” by J. B. Priestley: “The Thoughtreading -Machine,” by Andre Maurois; “The Troubled House,” by Rosamond Jacob; and “Meat for Mammon,” by Mary Mitchell. Two non-fiction books of interest are Louis Golding’s “In the Steps of Moses the Conqueror,” the seauel to “In the Steps of Moses the Lawgiver,” and “Further Maoriland Ad- r yentures of J. W. and. E. Stack.”