SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 140, 2 March 1918, Page 11

SOME RECENT FICTION

On the Road to Mandalay. In her-latest story, "The Road to Mandalay" (Cassell and Co.j per S. and W. Mackay), Mrs. B. M. Croker, to whom wo owo so many excellent novels dealing with Anglo-Indian life, takes us to Burmah, where goes to tako up a position in a big commercial house Douglas Shafto, a young Englishman of good family, the sudden financial min and death of whose father had causod tlio young man to relinquish tho military career for which he had imagined himself destined. By the samo boat Miss Sophy Leigh is a passenger to Rangoon, there to live with her aunt, an English lady, who is married to a Qermnn named Eranss. The fel-low-travellers become attached to_ each other, and Mrs. Croltor gives an interesting account of their love story as it develops in the- groat city on tho Irrawaddy. Krauss turns out to be t'ne head of a vast smuggling trade, and Mrs. Croker gives a lurid.picture of the evil effects of tho clandestine importation of .cocaiuo. Mrs. Klauss. unknown to hor husband, Jβ addicted to' the cocaine habit, to which sho finally succumbs. Many interesting minor<'cliaracters, bntli European and native, are introduced, and the local colour of tho story, towards the end of which a war interest is rather clumsily dragged in, is most picturesque. Mrs. Croker has never given her admirers a inoro readable- "story. "The Tomptatlon of Mary Lister." In Miss B. Everett Green's clever and experienced hands, that well-worn motif, tho personation of an heiress by a young lady who bears _ the samo name, becomes invested with a novel and attractive interest. From the

time when tho heroine of "Thu Temptation of fllnry Lister" (Stanley I'aul and Co.) moots thu dying heiress on shipboard and pledges herself to personate hor and claim the Ilartsliill estates to tho day when sho marries the real heir, Giles Lorimor, tho author keeps tho interest of her readers in tho fortunes of her muuh-tried heroine keenly ulive. Jliss Green is .it her best in a mystery sto.ry, and sho is peculiarly successful iu this her latest story, which, by the. way, possesses several well-drawn minor characters. '

"A Nest of Spies."

''A Nest of Spies" (Stanley Paul and Co.) is the latest volume.of what is now becoming yuiiu ;i respectably long Buries of cieverly-writtcn "detective" stories by two i'rench writers, Pierre Souvestro and Marcel Alliiin. The sub-iitle is "The Continued .Pursuit of I'liutomas, the Elusive." Iu their latest story ..again appears the mysterious criminal Ji'aiitoniiis, who, as tho JBaroni de Naarborock, a Goiman diplomatic agont, and the loafer Vagualaumo, commits the most atrocious villainies, and is as ingenious as over in putting his sworn enemies, Monsieur* Juve, the famous detective, and his adveuturo-loving friend, the joung journalist, Jeiomo Eandor, ofE' the scent. So successful indeed is he that Juve himself runs the risk of lieing accused as a murderer, and his friend finds himself a suspect.with the authorities. Eventually, however, Faiitomas is cornered, only to escape by means of an ingenious contrivance with which Juvo is familiar, but fails to lvinember at the crucial moment. A new character is introduced in one Bobinoito, a lady performer in the cok'C.dytragedy of tho chase after .Jfantcmns, which, by the way, takes Juve and Kandor on a brief visit to London. The authors keep the interest of their readers on the alert ; from tho> first to tiie last chapter of a story which, in its own particular genre, is a distinctly clever production. • . " "Wynningforri." Sir Arthur Wynningford, the hero of Dr. J. Morgan «!e Groot's novd 'J Wynningford." (Stanley Paul and Co.), is. a singularly unlucky individual. He marries a Hellish, heartless woman, mainly as tho result of lior mother's skilful manoeuvring, is suspected of murdoriiig his wife, ■ tried, and found guilty. He then retires 'to'; a self-built hut on his estates. Hero another woman who loves him commits suicide. Marrying a third- woman, who had been his iirst and true lovo, ho is haunted by tho deathof the second, and himseif commits suicide just as a messenger,.is on tho way to tell, him that the real murderer of his first wife had confessed- his guilt. The etory should please readers who love to sup on the sensational.