SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2271, 3 October 1914, Page 5

SOME RECENT FICTION.

"AKNICHTON WHEELS."

Lan Hayj <: the..author of those, amusing novels, :''A' : Man's Man," " "The Right Stuff," and "A Safety Match," gives us a,' oapital .story in "A EJiight. on Wheels" : (Hodder "and Stoughton, per L. M. Isitt, Chris'tchurch). Mr. Hay has never created a more likeable hero 'than Philip Meldrum, .the orphan lad, who, after living for some years with an. uncle who is a professional "begging letter writer," and a past-master in that doubtful art, is befriended by an eccentric but warm-hearted literary' man, who sends him to a public school, and afterwards assists him in,starting business life as a motor-car expert. Thoso who know Mr.' Hay's earlier novels, and havo f deligjhted in his whimsical humour, will find m Uncle Joseph, the womanhating "begging letter .writer," in Falconer the artist,, and Julius Mablethorpo the novelist, three characters fully oqual in their capacity for affordamusement to the reader to any of their predecessors. TJncle Joseph is worthy of Dickens .'at'his'best. As for the love story of Philip and Peggy, it is ono of the freshest and most'charming that I havo.come across in recent fiction. "A'Knight on Wheels" will assuredly be widely popular when once its fine quality.becomes recognised as it deserves to be. Mr.' Hay, as an ex-public school master,, is never more at home than when giving us studios of school life, and both the masters and the hoys of "Studley are the real thing. Upon tho. "ways that are dark and tricks that are vain" of a certain class of motorcar .salesmen, Mr._ Hay is qiiite disconcertingly informative. But it is Undo Joseph, the suave, polite, woll-educatod, resourceful; and amazingly impudent' old rascal who will bo b?jt remembered of all the many diverting characters in this admirable story. . , .

"THE LOST TRIBES." Canon Hantiay, ,or to ..give bim his j. botter-known nom-de-plume, "Georso A. "Birmingham," is, I am afraid, writingtoo much, and as a result his fun is becoming just. a. trifle forced. Nevertheless it is impossible not to' laugh, and that .right heartily,. over, some of the incidents in his latest, story,. "The Ten Tribes" (George Bell and Sons'; per Whitcbmbe and Tombs), the leading character in which is a wealthy American widow, who.suddenly descends upon the peaceful, not to say dull, little Galway.- village of Druminawona, and soon Has 1 'thy especially the Anglican, vicar, her relation, the R-ev. Mr. Mervyn, and the Catholic priest, Father Roche,'all agog',with excitement over ; hor project of "boosting" 'Druminawona as'the.home of the lost ten tribes. How the voluble Mrs..Dann.attempts to persuade the two clerics into'_ supporting her project' of running a Miracle Play, with the Druminawona peasants, as actons'and-actresses, and of "boosting" an ancient spring in| the place as a Holy Well, the water from'which is to be bottled—with a -picture' of Father Roche on the labels I—how'.she1 —how'.she acts as a mattimonial. agent to her niece and to a stupid.but good-hearted Irish servant maid; how in the long run, through :failing in her' Miracle Play and Holy. .Well • projects,; she conquers even the nil-powerful Catholic bishop—all these .and many other c.urious and amusing happenings at Di-uminaworia are narrated by the author with all tho old vim,' and some at least if not all the old- spontancou" humour which won so wide a publio -'for-'. '"Spanish" Gold," "General O'Regan," -and other of 'George A. Birmingham's earlier storieß. "The.Lost Tribes" is good- fun all through, and.hotween ; the lines-there is much' shrewd comment upon Irish' ques r tioris and problems of the day.

TWO NEW "AMERICANS." Two readable American novels recent ly published.by L. C. Page and Co., Boston (Christchurch, ; Gordon and ; Gotch), are "The Rose of Roses," by •Mrs;; Henry Backus/and "Miss Madelvn Maok, Detective," by Hugh C. Woir. The heroine of Mrs. Bockus's story; Toni Kroger, is a German girl (whose mother was English), who is * Kaffeehaus singer in Bremen. Attracting tho attention of a young American architect of German birth, who is on a visit from New: York, he pities tho 'girl and pays herpjssago to America. Toni's equivocal position aa Conrad. Questenborg's "companion" might.have led to.evil, but the girl finds a stauuch friend in an honest old German pastor,'who is travelling by. the same boat, and who discovers that his own son, Philip, now dead, had been engaged to her, but that the girl, fearing the young 'man's olerical career might be ruined by. his marriage, had broken off the match. The good-hearted minister constitutes himself 'the girl's, guardian, and the story ends'with her marriage to. Questenberg. .The chief attraction' of the stoTy lies in its clotures of German family life, both in 'the Fatherltind and in New York.

The lady detective is no novelty in latter-day fiction, but Mr. H. C. Weir must .at least bo credited with displaying some originality in the • class of crimes the perpetrators of'which are hunted down so promptly and so cleverly, by his horoine. A lady-reporter on a New York daily acts as a feminine "Mr. Watson" to the feminine prototype of Sherlock Holmes. "Tile' Missing Bridegroom" is reminiscent of ono of Do Boisgobey's clever.yarns in the same. style, but the American story is far crispor in the manner of its telling. Those who take delight in "detective" fiction should be more than satisfied with Mr. Weir's book

CAPTIVATINC MARY CARSTAIRS. Let it be said at once that although Mr. Henry Sn.vdor Harrison's novel "Captivating Mary Oarstairs" (Small, Maynard, and Co.; per George Robertson and Co.) is hardly up to the standard of the same author's • "V. V.'s Eyes," and still less to the High watermark of that excellent novel "Queed," ic is a lively., amusing effort, which is decidedly worth reading. The novel was first published, pseudonymously, in February, 191.1, although planned as far back as 1901. It describes'the adventures of two young New Yorkers, men of means and leisure, who go up the Hudson River to a small cjuntry town on the hazardous miusicji of "captivating" or kidnapping a young and pretty girl, whose father has lo'n<| been separated from her mother, and who has been.- denied access to the daughter, for whose affection he pines. Incidentally, the two adventurers find themselves entangled in a struggle which is going .on in the little riverside, town between a "graft" party and some jWould-bo reformers, and the story rapidly develops into the record of a series of exciting incidents, in which Miss Carstairs'sometimes plays quite a secondary part. Tho plot is complicated by ono of tho adventurous pair of "kidnappers" falling desperately in love with the young lady upon whoso person ho has had designs, and a second, and, for a time, most mysterious influence is that of. an old gentleman who outwits the "kidnappers" and eventually turns out to be the girl's own father. Hie conclusion is all that the most romance loving reader could desiro it to be. The story goes with a swing from first to last of its three hundred and odd pages, and makes very good reading. "WILD JUSTICE.." Francos Clare's "Wild Justice" (Andrew Melrose; per George Robertson and Co.) is a story which leaves- a

somewhat unpleasant flavour on, the palate. It-deals, with the_love story of Antony Bellairs, an ex-politician who, upon inheriting a valuable property in Ireland, has retired from Parliamentary life, and a young .Irish girl, Paula Mnrkham. Bellairs is a married man, a fact which has not prevented the handsome and unprincipled Countess of Chell falling in love • with him, and •him with her, and, later on, is equally ineffective in checking his deep passion for Paula.' The Countess is set aside, and Wio scorned woman, by the aid of a rascally Anglo-Indian officer, learns of a scandal in poor Paula's life, and makes it public. Exactly how the .story ends I will hot say, save that both Antony and Paula deny themselves, the happiness which the man at least considers should bo theirs. The fates are against poor Paula ajl through, .but more than one reader of the story will agree with me that Mrs. Bellairs is deserving of much more pity than, apparently, the author is inclined to show her.

"THE MARRIACE CONTRACT." A recent addition to Hutchinson's Colonial Library (per Whitcomhe and Tombs) is "The Marriage Contract," by Joseph Keating, which deals, very frankly and cleverly, with tho problem of whether the' husband of a deeplyerring—a deliberately unfaithful wife, a husband who refuses to turn away tho sinner from his house, is compelled to forgive.. her everything. Delia Quest behaves abominably to her husband, a Welsh land and coalmine owner, and certainly deserves to be divorced: Tho husband, however, ' allows her to remain in his house, but treats her as a .stranger. To all her pleadings he remains de.->f, and finally tho sinner attompts to take her own life,- and that of her child. Tho hueband then comes to the restuo and forgives. The story is ono which will provoko much direussion.' ENCLISH COUNTRY LIFE. ' ' Two new 6torics of English' country life, recently added to Hutchinson's Colonial Library (per Whitcombo and Tombs) are "Tho Bala Fire," by Mrs. Hugh Frasor and Hujh Fraser), and "Fansy," by Ticktiev Edwarrk The first story has for chief figure the young wife of an elderly country geoit'loman who, becoming involved 'in financial troubles; unknown to her husband, ia blackmailed, and threatened with social and moral ruiri by a rascally fellow, but is rescued by a kindly American, Senator an<3 his sensible, good-hearted daughter. A readable, if hardly a notable, novel Mr. Edwardes, the author of ."Tansy," will be remembered, as the writer of that pretty story of English south sountry life, "The Honey Star." In VTansy" he takes us- again to the' South Downs, beloved of Kipling and I-iihvire Belloc,- and gives us a wellwritten story of country, life, in which a shepherd plays a leading part. The heroine, a. woman of great strength of character,,is built' somewhat on the lines of some of Thomas Hardy's figures., The whole story is replr.te with a quiet, convincing charm. As an observer and chronicler of the simple, unconventional, life of the Sussex village folk, Mr. Edwardc6 has to-day no equal. ' • ' .

Two recent additions to Hutchinson's Colonial • Library (per Whitcombe and Tombs) are "Broken Music," by Phyllis Bottome, and ''The Eight of Diamonds," by Horaoo Hutchinson. 'The former is far the better .written story of tho two, the hero being a young I'renchmnn of noble birth, who is brought up by a village , priest, whose desire it is that his pupil shall enter the: church. But Jean D'Ucellis has his own ambition, which is to bo a great musician, and -this by the time the end.of the story is reached he succeeds in becoming. There js'a wicked siren in the story, but true love and virtue are finally trhunphijnt Mr. Hutchinson's, story deals with a gambling- scandal at-a country house. It is neither better nor worse than the usual run of fiction which deals with tho desperate devices by which young s men given to extravagance try nnd "correct fortune," as Casanova' used to put it; and generally come:to grief in the operation.

A volume of plays, or playHs, by Sir J. M. Barrie, is announced by Hodder and Stoughton, under- the title of '.'Half Hours at the Theatre." Bernard Shaw's plays still sell very-well in New Zealand, although the booksellers tell mo the demand for G.B.S. has fallen off a little of late.