BOOKS & AUTHORS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2447, 28 April 1915, Page 4

BOOKS & AUTHORS

(By Liber.)

SOME RECENT FICTION. BHIFTINC SANDS. The name of Alice Birkhead, the author of "Shifting Sands" (John Lane), is new to me, but it is one which I shall be always glad to welcome oil a title pago, if only her future work is equal in quality to that of this excellent story. In "Shifting Sands" is set forth the story of a woman of strong character, but of an emotional temperament which leads to sudden im-' pulses, the result of which do not always tend to happiness. Early in Gabrieile Brandon's life, wo find her giving.up a fiance with whom she has little in common, but who, for a girl in her circumstances, is a "gcod match," to a selfish and rather silly younger sister. Next we meet, her in a Midland or Noj-th Country town, typist and secretary to a wealthy and self-concentrated and ambitious manufacturer. Here she falls in love with a handsome but selfish | young lawyer, who prefers the manufacturer's daughter—and her dot. From the. smoky industrial centre, rejecting the manufacturer's offer of marriage, the heroine now turns to the 6tage. Here she finds her true vocation, and attains a certain celebrity, the time coming when she is able to save her lawyer lover from the ruin which threatens him through his improper use of trust money. It is hard to see the man she has loved the property of another and a weaker woman than GabrieUe might have found Clifford Ha-wskley'B spell fatal to both her moral nosition and to her peace of mind. But she remains strong—and solitary—and the story closes with a professional trip to America on the near horizon. Miss Birkhead is specially strong in characterisation, hut her style generally is stimulating and attractive. She has written a, novel decidedly well worth the reading.

PIGEON BLOOD RUBIES. ■With many novel readers Mr. H. M'D. Bodkin's amateur detective, Paul Beck, has become as popular, a hero as was for bo many years Conan Doyle's famous character, Sherlock Holmes.. The latest story in which Paul Beck figures is entitled "Pigeon Blood Rubies" (Eveleigh Nash),, the special crimes with which the "criminal investigator" is called upon to deal being a series of murders, to say nothing of thefts, forgeries, and a kidnapping, committed b.v a gang of scoundrels who desire to possess a certain document, the property of Lord Tresham, which reveals the i secret of a process by which synthetic rubies of the famous pigeon's blood hue can te manufactured at a nominal cost, rubies absolutely undistinguishable from the real gems. The cane is led by a young, barrister and • society man, ' who. of course, 'is _ suspected by no one.-,, and who exhibits an ingenuity in devising his crimes as astonishing as the audacity with which thev are executed. How Paul Beck, a club crony of Lord Tresham, and the criminal hero, Ballon, comes to "smell out," as the Zulu witch doctors put it, the real culprit, and how Belton once' outwitted, peace js restored to a much troubled family. is told by Mr. Bodkin in a wellwritten story, which should vastly delight lovers of the sensational. The ffict that the author is a K. 0.. accounts, no doubt, for his familiarity with criminal law and the workings of_ f-fotcland Yard in the detection of orime.

THE FOREIGN LECION ONCE AGAIN. Not a few novelists have described 1 the_ life of the famous Foreign Legion which France has organised and has put to such useful service in her conquest and military control of Algeria and Morocco. But following the lead given by "Ouida" in her once famous romance, "Under Two Flags," most of those whQ have made their heroes members of the Legion have dealt almost solely with .the romantic side of the Legionaries' life. In his well-written novel, "Lost Sheep" (John Lane), Mr. Vere Shortt does not, it is true, disdain the value of a romantic, interest, but he stresses the cosmopolitan composition of the Legion, the sordidity and brutality of the everyday life and the dangerous character of the work of the Legionaries, in a very dramatic and realistio way. His hero is a young English cavalry officer, who runs through a fortune, resigns his commission, and "goes under, eventually enlisting in the Legion, and seeing service in the Algerian hinterland. Mr. Shortt skilfully introduces a love story, with the close of which, however, the sentimental reader may find little to his—or her —liking, but the interest and value of the novel lie chiefly in the unsparingly realistic description of the barrack and camp life of the Legionaries, and indirectly the peouliar hut internationally important "All Moslem" movement led by that famous but still very mysterious figure, El Senussi. A very readable story.

A SOUTH AFRICAN STORY. Miss Yelva Burnett, the. author of "Wings of Wax" (Methuen. and Co.), was, 'I read, born in Kimberley, and is connected with several leading Dutch families, her uncle being Moderator of the . Dutch Reformed Church, and holding the position of chaplain to the Union Parliament. These facts will aooount for the intimate acquaintance displayed by the author with many phases and characteristics of South African life, especially of the life of the Capo Dutch, which is rarely to be found in novels of this kind. Miss Burnett's heroine, Laura Van Schaal, is a romantic idealist, who, totally ignorant of the great forces of life, seeks to save men from the results of their indiscretions. She . deliberately marries the drunkard. John Horn, intending to and being confident Bhe will redeem him, never realising that redemption is rarely achieved unless a great love is the imnelling force. How, in the long run. that great love is evolved, and how it transfigures and ennobles two human beings, . making self-sacrifice not nnlv welcome, but positively desirable, is told bv Miss Burnett in a story, which, althouoh it suffers somewhat bv its excessive length, and its over-elaboration of obtrusive detail,' is nevertheless a literary _ achievement of nuite outstanding merit. Despite her tendency to indulge in a most unfeminine ponderosity of speeoh. Laura Van School slowlv. but mirclv. gainn the reader's sywnathv and affection. Some of the minor characters are drawn v with such care that tbev siiTtrest the probability of their being thinly veiled portraits.

BILL THE BUSHMAN. : A further series of reminiscences of bush life in 'Australia, edited by the Rev. Charles H. 6. Matthews, author of that capital book, "A Parson in the Australian Bush," has been published under tho. title "Bill: A Bushman" (London, Edward Arnold; price 45.). Tho new book is an autobiography of a busli worker who in his time plays many parts, as shearer, coach-driver, jockey, miner, musterer, shepherd, dingoshooter, and buckjumper expert with a "Wild Australia" show, with which he travelled through Java, Burmah, and the Malay States, ending up in London, "dead broke" and grateful to his old chum, the bush parson, for assistance in setting back to ..Australia. Bill tells his own story' in an easy-going' style, and the narrative mttkea apod readme:. One of tho tao&t mterestwa eaaoters

is that in which Bill's South African War experiences are recorded. The hero is a rough diamond, whose acquaintance, at second hand, in print, would probably be preferable to personal intimacy. Mr. Matthews contributes an introduction, and there are several allustrations.

"BAMBI." "Bambi," by Marjorie Benton Cooke (Doubleday, Page and Co.; per George Robertson and Co.), is tho very latest of American "best sellers." It certainly is a very amusing book, with a freakish, whimsical humour all its own, and somo delightfully eccentric characters. The bewitching little heroine, Bambi, is the daughter of a perfectly impossible professor, who is wrapped up in his mathematical studios, anil carries his trick of absent-mindedness to the verge of apparent idiocy. He has an equally absentminded friend, one Jarvis Jocelyn, an unacted but most enthusiastic playwright, a handsome and genial young fellow, who, alas, is more bent upon wiiuiing fame with an "uplift" play than he is properly perceptive of the charms of the delightful Bambi. So Bambi marries him, almost by force, and having made a married man of him, vastly to his astonishment, proceeds to "boom" him as a dramatist. .To which end she goes to New York and besieges Messrs. Belasco, Frohmau, and other high luminaries in the American theatrical world. Also, incidentally, to keep the domestic pot hoiling, whilst yet the future personified combination of PinerO; Shaw, and Brieux fails to "make good" as a playwright, she writes stories, which are fought for- by magaBiue editors, all this quite unknown to Jarvis. Jocelyn. Eventually she takes the playwright to New York, and cheats her husband into collaborating with her —the lady disguising her identity in some very curious correspondence—in the production of a play which makes the hit of the season. At the opening performance the secret is disclosed. Although for a time, his vanity being hurt, the playwright hubby does a little mila Bulkmg, ho soon comes round to sec what a clever and truly loving little woman his wife is, and the marriage becomes a reality. Preposterous as is its plot, the story is so brightly told that it makes very delightful reading. Jocelyn is, of course, an absurdly impossible creature, and as for the professor father, no such person could very well exist in real life. But one can forgive the impossibility 'of the story in the charm which attaches to Bambi's adventures in New York, and the general atmosphere of youthful and irresistibly gay optimism which is created whenever she is on the stage. How long "Bambi" may be a "best seller," I do not know, but it is an uncommonly fresh and jolly story. The. illustrations, by Mary Greene Bluemenscbein, are exceptionally good.

"NESBIT'S CONTRACT." Jack Nesbit, the hero of Mr. Paul Trent's sensational but well-written alory "Nesbit's Contract" (Ward, Lock, and' Co.; per Whitcombe and Tombs) is a struggling young barrister who loves, and in lovod, by Miss Joan Barclay, whose father, a retired colonel, has muddled away the small fortunes of Jack and his wicked cousin Guy, for whom the Colonel is trustee. Jack at once foregoes all claim on the colonel, but Guy, who also loves Joan, refuses, and threatens to send the old gentleman to prison unless his daughter agrees to marry him forthwith. This she refuses to do. Meanwhile Jack meets a city speculator, who is his "double," and. who,, is threatened with a criminal prosecution. This man, Pleydon, offers Jack £20,000 to assume his (Plpydon's) personality, and to risk the trial. Jack accepts, in order to pay off Guy and, save Joan.. Then steps in another lady, an actress, who is madly enamoured of Pleydon, who, in his turn, has become equally enamoured of the attractive Miss Barclay. How Jack stands his brial, as Pleydon, how Pleydon, threatened with exposure by the actress, kidnaps Joan away on a yacht, and of what follows," you can read for yourself in the pages of Mr. Trent's highly sensational yarn, whioh would make a most attractive kinematograph drama. . -