SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2546, 21 August 1915, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION.

"CONQUEST." Miss Olive Wadsley, the author of "Conquest" iCassell and Co.; per S. and W. Mackay), introduces us to a new kind of hero, namely, a professional pugilist, a combination of Adonis and Hercules, plus an intellectual equipment which includes an acquaintance with _ and tasie for such authors as Gautier and Verlaine, to whose works the average champion bruiser would, I fancy, be a complete stranger. The explanation is found in"the' fact that Bill Achat .was born in Paris, and although the son of a degraded mother, possessed, on the'paternal side, a fond of natural intellectual power. The adventures of the' tougli-bodied - and strong-willed' ex-gamin ,' ; when' he is thrown into.the cruel world of London, are related with great spirit, and when Bill 'gradually.) develops -into a , famous prize-fighter he still retains, the reader's sympathy;' 'ftVl'eave 'him in the last, chapter married to a beautiful widow of good family, for whom lie' finally abjures tho glories of . the ring, the pair settling down as vineyard'owners in a littlo Swiss village. A very readable story, although, I fear, its main incidents could not easily be paralleled in real life.

"THE MORMON LION." Many romances' hayerbeen written with Utah as a background, and the figures of tlio "Danites," the "Avenging Angels" of the Mormon Church, as chief • villains. But there was room for such a spiritedly-told and liiehly-dra-matio story as Mr. David Ford's "Tho Mormon Lion" (John Long). Tho hero is a young lawyer from one of tho Eastern States, who, misled by tho teachings of Mornian missionaries, who carefully retrain from telling the real facts as to tho rascalities and vices for which the so-called latter-day saints became notorious, goes out to Salt Lake City, en route, a sweet young, English girl, to whom, on tho death of lior father, the young man finds himself acting as trustee ana. guardian. Onco arrived at Salt Lake City it is not long before both the hero and heroine are completely disillusioned, discovering, as they do, tho real character of so many, of the "saints." Each has a narrow escape, tha girl from becoming tho .yictim of a, horrible old Mormon older'g

lu6t, the hero from death as an apostate and enemy of the Church. Finally, after a succession of hair-breadth adventures with the "Danites," the pair, who have been legally married by a friendly Methodist minister, manage to escape to San Francisco- Although highly sensational in many of its episodes, the story is well written, and throws many curious sidelights upon the working of tho Mormon Church in ,the days of Brigham Young, especially on the uglier side of that abominablo institution polyamy, to which, in Young's day at least, the Church was so devoted.

[ A SILENT WITNESS. : In "A Silent Witness" (Hodder and Stoughton; per S. and W. Maokay), Mr. Austin Freeman, whose "Mystery of 31 New Inn," and "The Unwilling Adventurer" were such admirable crumples of' the detective story, gives us an ingeniously-contrived criminal mystery. in the unravelling of which ft young doctor plays a prominent part, the Sherlock Holmes role being entrusted to an elder man, Dr. S. Tfiorndyke, with whose remarkable powers of intuition and rapid and correet deductions from seemingly the most puzzling happenings readers of Mr. Freeman's earlier stories will be familiar. Interwoven with the exposure of the darkdeeds of the villainous cosmopolitan criminal, Septimus Maddock, alias Van Damme, as resourceful and daring' a scoundrel in his way as Conan Doyle's famous Professor Moriarty, is a very pretty love story, in which the young surgeon-hero and an artist's daughter are concerned. The scene is laid in Londoii, the author's acquaintance with the streets and squares of which is as "extensive and peculiar" as was that of the late Mr. Sam Weller. Altogether a capital yarn in its own class.

THE HOUSE OF THE FOXES, '■'Tho House of tho Foxes," by Kathcrine 'Tynan (George Bell and Sons; per Whitcombe and Tombs), is a prettily told" and interesting Irish story, the heroine of which goes -as companion to Lady Turloghmore, succeeds in breaking the spell- of bad luck which has been cast on the Turloghmore family, and, incidentally, wins the heart of an anriable young nobleman. Miss Tynan has skilfully utilised an old Irish legend, one which Mr. W. B. Yeats might well have used as the motif for one of his weirdly beautiful poems, and the improbabilities of the story, may well be forgiven the author of so pleasantly, told and pretty a story.

"THE FIRES OF HATE." ' In "The Fires of' Hate" (Hodder and .Stonghton, per S. and W.'Mackay), Mr. lloy Bridges, who has written not _ a little fiction possessing an Australian background, and dealing with, the convict days, gives "us an exciting but wellconstructed novel, in which the old convict''system, ;in force in New South Wales, Van. Dieman's Land, and Norfolk Island, is recalled. Tho opening scenes take place in London—London of the Regency, .the hero, a jolly young, fellow, named John Redby, becoming the victim of a scorned' woman's hatred. Upon her perjured evidence ho is convicted of murder. The sentence is commuted to. transportation for life, and the sceine then changes to New South Wales, later on shifting in turn to Nor-folk-Island, and finally to Tasmania. How tho hero's innocence is proved, and liowj after a series '.of strange adventures,'lie eventually marries the young. English lady he had loved and wooed in the Old Country, I:may not say. The story may not be up to the high standard of Marcus Clarke's famous "For the Term of His Natural Life," that admitted. Australian classic, but it makes good reading.

"THE COOD SHIP BROMPTON CASTLE." If* Lady Bell, the author of "The Good ■Ship Brompton Oastle" . (Mills and Boons, per Whitcombe and Tombs), is not put on the free list of a certain shipping company whose steamers trade [to South Africa,. the . directors must jsurely be sadly ungrateful folk, for the story, nominally that of the love passages of a wealthy young Englishman : with two ladies, one a'peer's daughter, 'and his fellow passenger in the first saloon, the .other, a poor and comparatively friendless girl who is going out (as a second-class passenger) to seek .'her fortune in Rhodesia, is very largely a tributo to the various pleasures and gaieties of shipboard life, especially as experienced on a Castle liner. The author is very ;happy in hitting off the personalities ana peculiarities of the passengers, and although a trifle too_ spun-out, her story makes pleasant .reading.

"THE FLAME OF DARING." Written, so I should imagine, beforo the war began, Mr. Harold Spender's novel, "The Flame of Daring" (Mills and Boon; per Whitcombe and Tombs) deals with the adventures of an English yacliltsmafli,; whose vessel is skilfully utilised,' against' the owner's'will, and without his knowledge, for laying mines in the Aegean Sea, the period being that of the first Balkan War, and 1 ithe mine-laying being the work of a soldier of fortune, an Englishman who is in the pay of the Turks. A prominent part in tho little plot in which the yachtsman is enmeshed is played by a member of tho Young Turk Party, resident in London. Mr. Spender makes too big a draft upon our ' credulity when he describes the cunning Turk as disclosing tho secret of the Turkish mine-laymg plan to a beautiful young Greek lady, of whom he is desperately enamoured, and, to tell the truth, the fair Greok herself is.' equally unconvincing. Still the story has iso fresh and picturesque , a background, and some at least of its incidents are so dramatic and exciting that its manifest improbabilities may well be overlooked.

"A SHILLING.SHOCKER." "Outrage," by "'Banco" (Werner Laurie), is a' shilling shocker, both in price and character. It relates fcho horrible experience of a young English lady, who finds herself in a Belgian town which is over-run by the Huns, and of the pitifully trying situation of the girl when she returns to England— and her betrothed. The story ends happily enough, but without going into details I feel-bound to say that in

''Liber's" opinion it'would have been better left unwritten. The flaring and suggestive picture oil the cover is eloquently true to the lurid and vulgar sentiraentalism of the contents of the book.' It is bad enough to read of tho : horrors of the Huns in the liowspapers without'tlie foul deeds of tho enemy being reproduced in catchpenny fiction.

SOME REPRINTS. A "Full of Smiles Book" is hoiv the publishers (Messrs. Hodder and Stougliton) describe their new and ehcaper edition (Is. 3d.) of Jean Webster's delightful story "Daddy Long-Legs," which was reviewed in these columns on its first appearance. Told in lottcrs, "Daddy Long-Legs" is a very charming love story which, in its new and cheaper form, should reach a new and wide circlo of readers and admirers. To Mr. John Long's Shilling Library of Fiction, in which there are so many alluring titles, has been added a reprint of Lilian Arnold's dramatic and well-written novel of Cornish life, "Tho Storm Dog." Mr. Long has also added to his well-known sovcupenny library new edition of "The Romance of a Maid of Honour," by that well practised and over entertaining writer Mr. Richard Marsh, and "Nurse Charlotte," by tho 'late Mrs. L. T. Meade.' To Mr. John Murray's excellent Shil.linE Library, ten tho first issue of which

reference was made in this journal a fortnight or so ago, has now been added a new edition of Gene Stratton Porter's novel "Freckle's," a pretty and wholesome' story, which well deserved the widespread popularity it has attained. Over 750,000 copies of "Freckles" have already been sold, This is indeed a "best seller."-