SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2764, 6 May 1916, Page 11

SOME RECENT FICTION

The Super Spy. • The heroine of W..Holt-White's highly sensational story, "The' Super-Spy" (Andrew. Melrose; .per Whitcombe and Tombs) is a cinema actress, whose employer, a Napoleon of the moving picture industry, is at the head of - a widespread .German spy system in Great Britain, the period of the story being just before the war. An eccentric old Irish professo.r, a'clcver young journalist, a British general or two, and an exceptionally daring aviator, all play prominent parts in the story, the conclusion of which will afford a very genuine surprise for niost_ of its readers, for it is the German spies who are outspied and outwitted; and thoso responsible for this agreenble__deno'jement are, curiously enough, the very people who, for the greater part of the story, appear to be the most devoted members of the Berlin Secret Scrvicc Depart iv,ent. Apart from the spy motif, the story 'gives a very interesting description' of how the moving picture indus-. try is conducted. : '

Myrtle Reed's StoMes. 1 •Many New Zealand- readers know and have enjoyed the highly sentimental but undoubtedly pinitty stories, written by the late Myrtle lleed, an American novelist," works-have achieved widespread popularity in the. United States. Reprints of two of thoso stories, "Lavender and. Old Luce" and "Old Hose and Silver," have now been published by Messrs. Mctliuen and Co. In their cheapor form these stories should now rcach many new readers, and extend their already wide held or popularity. ■ (N.Z-. price, Is. Gd; each.)

purple Passion. . Not for some time, lias it been my misfortune to have to plough through such a vulgar and'ugly story as Miss (or Mrs. -G. tie S. AVontworth James's "Purple Passion" (Werner Laurie). The heroine, a lady who has divorced lier husband, spends Boinc time as companion "to the wife of a well-to-do financier, and then becomes a member -of a circle of fourth-class Bohemians, artists' models, unsuccessful painters, prigs' and failures who posß as literary geniuses, and so forth. In the end the lady encounters her divorced husband, the pair "make it up" and.there is a second marriage. A •morp' contemptible, i. odious, and openly vicious lot of people have seldom been, crowded together in a novel than the leading characters in "Purple Passion."" The general tono of the story is atrociously vulgar, and to _ say that certain scenes arc "risky," is to use quite a mild expression.

The super-Barbarians. Mr. Carlton Dawe's "Super-Barbar-ians" (John Lane) is a yarn, tho hero, a young English merchant officer, being captured by a German submarine, whose commander, ilrunk with pride in. tho destructive capacities of his craft, spares his prisoner in order that he may gloat over his horror at tho deatli-doaling deeds of tho pirates. Later on, the Englishman rescues an English girl victim of

another submarine crime, and the pair are taken to the secret bnso of the Hun pirates on the coast of Morocco, whence, eventually, after a series (if most exciting adventures on sea and land, thoy cschpe. oil board a British destroyer'.' The German commander and his torpedo expert .both persecute the English girl with their unwelcome, attentions, .and each is quite astounded that the young Ind.y is.not..responsive. ■There is not a dull page in the book, which, in view of present-day happenings, possesses a topical interest winch should commend it to novel.readers.