SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 115, 8 February 1919, Page 11

SOME RECENT FICTION.

"Tho Pawns Count.;' Do you want, to forgot. nil nlionl llin Peace Conference, t'lic Bolslieviki, and Mr. "Hilly" TTuglies, to be temporarily indifferent to tlin cost of living. the lost, stolen, or strayed summer weather, and Mm chances of a "flu" revival, to be cheerfully oblivions of all the latler(lny jjrnhloma anil worries of life? If so. I counsel Hip purchase of -Mr. I',. Philips (Ippenheim's latest—his very latest—novel, "The Pawns fount" (Ifnddcr and .Sloiisrhton). 'j might seem difficult to find a nuv.' and original treatment oi Hie now quite venerable motif of a conflict ol wits between rival secret cervices. Hill Mr. Oppeaheim proves fully equal In the tusk, ami in "Tho Pawns (omit lias . written what is oi<<> n j ""j most, ingeniously conceived and cleverly' elaborated stories of German plot and British counterplot that we have had during a ' wnr period almost extravaganlly prolific of this class oi fiction. For the main part the sccnc is New York, the principal figures Ul the

comedy-drama, for humorous and serious incident.-; are happily alternated, being <1 handsome and intensely patriotic American lady, l'amcla van Toyl; a GerinanAmerican financier, Fischer; and a British secrct service -agent, John Lutchcstor. Tlio plot turns upon tho attempts of German and Japanese ngents to ■ secure' tho peeret of a wonderful new explosive,the formula of which is stolen from the British inventor at a fashionable Jiondon restaurant, run by a foreigner, who is a German agelit. -Miss vnn-Teyl imagines slio possesses the precious document, which Fischer tries hard. to get from her by fa.ii- means or foul. "To -. this end ho employs ft young Japanese, who poses as his seVntnl, bill who in reality is an ex-member of the .Japanese Embassy at Paris. Fischer's one weak point is his passion for the handsome young American, win,, - however, is ill invo will; Liitflhesler. This gentleman follows the heroine to.Now York, and comes to lier rescue when the search for the much-coveted formula involves its supposed owner's personal .-safety and' '-honour.- Fischer gets early news of tho first reports about, the Battle of Jutland, ami "bears" British and French' securities 011 Wall. Street in tho'confident expectation of making a. huge fortune. Lutchester, however, who also has had early and exclusive neiv.s—of a more aceurato nature—cleverly outwits the Herman-American, ami' wins Pamela's hand al'ter convincing her Hint the document she has so jealously guarded is merely a fake, the actual formula having •long Ago fallen into his hands nnd been transmitted to the British Admiralty. Mr. Oppenheim cleverly describes the j tortuous and treacherous working of the Huns in thc-ir endenvmirs to prejudice ; American opinion against the Allies. Tho game of dinmond-cut-dihmond, 111 which the Uerman and British agents take part and tho "lone bawl" share init which is played by (lie young Japanese, is worked out with no small ingenuity. The story is one onco commenced will not readily-, bo put down. Here is Mr, Oppcnlioim at his very best in a style of story 111 which bo lias few equals and 110 masters. "Far From the Limelight." Gertrudo Page, whose entertaining novels of South African lifo are so popular, is quite at her best in the n\o stories "Litl.lo Nove.ls of Rhodesia, comprised in Tier latest volume, I'M' Itoiii the Limelight" (Casscll. and Co., per S. and W. Mackny). The title story is a pathetic study of the tragedy winch so suddenly comrs into the life of a. young English settler; nnd throws a viyidfight upon .the trials so often to. be.endured by the out-back settlers along tho frontier paths of civilisation.. Tragedy,.too, is tho dominant note- in "Tlio Falling Gods," with its picture of a noble wo-, nian wedded to a semi-insane brute, out | gallantly bearing her burden for the sako of the name borne by -her dend son, 0110 of the naval heroes of the war. His Job" is the story Of a -R-hodesmn doc-1 tor, whose ambition it is to serve at the front, but who is pinne.d to. " post he has long -learnt to hate, so draly and dreary is its accompaniment ot monotv onous duly, by- tho fact "that lie cannot be spared. He finds; bis reward, not onlj in tlio consciousness of duty performed, but in the love of a good woman.- In the last story, "The Chronicles of tlio Honourable Dicky Baird," there is somo. sprightly and very . .welcome humour. Mrs. Page's new stories should pten.se all her old admirers and gain her many new readers. "His Alien Ensmy.". ■ "His Alien -Enemy," by the Hon; Mrs. Forbes (John Murray, ■ IW WJntcombe and Tombs) is a well-fold Die chief figure is an Irish-born lady, married to a wealthy German chemical manufacturer. When war breaks out tho poor woman lias to face the. inct that her soil (educated at. Eton and Oxford) is a German officer. For her t)io problem is: Is her country that.™ lor father or her son? It .is a problem,.alas, that only too many English wives ot Gorinnn husbands, have had to face, and poor Fran von R-Othenstoinhnds its solution a very difficult and paintul matter. ' A secondary interest is.provided by the lovo story of an. English' colonel and an American lady to whom he is engaged, a. lady who is the widow of a German baron. Mrs. Forbes gives us some vivid pictures of Gepnnti and English society in.,.fhc day's.immediately preceding the outbreak; of war, and, in footnotes, presents documentary proof of many of the facts of which she.makes fictional use. Tho moral of tlio story is of course, that marriages with- nliens should be sternly eschewed. So far as Germans are concerned there. 19 little. feaT, I should imagine, of many suchmarriages occurring in the. future.; "Those Folk of Bulboro." Tho novel reader usually associates the nanio of Mr. Edgar Wallace with stories' <>f the Oil Rivers ■ region,' 011 tlio West Coast of Africa, but for his latest novel, "Those Folk of Bulboro" (Ward, Lock and Co.; per Whitcombc and Tombs), Mr. Wallaco has chosen lis bis scenario an English provincial riinnufaetAiring centre. A young doctor, who' liasVspeiit some years in Africa, and achieved celebrity as an. -authority ■; on'' tropical. .diseases, returns to his native town to talre up the 'practice left' by his uncle, and the story soon .resolves itself into a study of Bulboro society and the unpopularity of the young medico, who does not disguise'his dislike of the atmosphere of humbug and hypocrisy which pervades the town. It is difficult to believe that so'' many disagreeable people could be found, in prominent liosu tionij, in any one town as, those whom young Drl- Manton meets in Bulboro. Mr. Wallace is specially' severe in his portraits of the. local religious.leaders, and mifi cannot. thinking that I'n'particular, his character sketches of the Nonconformist ministers of the -town-savour more of caricatmrfi than .reality. ' Such dramatic interest -as the slory jiossesses is provided by a religious fanatic whose self-righteousness"lend!;-.him.into a lner-. cilcsslv cruel attack iiipon the vicars wife, a much suffering woman, an ugly episode in whose earlier life tlio fanatic discovers and cruelly makes public. It. is to bo hoped that Mr. Wallace has: not drawn his "Bulbm'u folk" from real life. If so, that town hutch, bo a singularly unpleasant placo (if residence for any decent, charitably-minded people.