SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 32, 1 November 1919, Page 11

SOME RECENT FICTION

"A Woman of Action." Pdul Trent generally favours a strongly-dramatic motif iu his stories, and readers of his latest novel, "A Woman of Action" (Ward, Lock and Co.), have no reason, to complain, of any lack of sensation. A West African mining speculator makes a huge fortune, and comes to England to spend it, and found a family which shall possess a higher social status than that which ho has attained. Ho falls in love with a young lady of good but impoverished family, but is scornfully refused. Tho scene then changes to the Gold Coast, wliero tho girl's brother is brutally murdered. She believes the millionaire to have been the murderor, but lator on, when tho pair are back m England, sho marries him. At the wedding breakfast sho publicly accuses him of tho crime. The African authorities had refused to prosecute, but tho wife's intention is to ruin her husband socially. Eventually, however, the real murderer is detected, and lovo having boen akin to hato all through, tho wifo, now a popular actress, electrifies her audience by publicly clearing her husband. Quite on approved kinema drama lines is "Tho Woman of Action," but thoso who like flieir fiction to be richly provided with "thrills" will no doubt find Mr. Trent's latest 6tory greatly to their taste.

"Wildersome." Mr. Hailiwell Sutcliile's novel, "Vvildersomo" (Ward, .lock and Co.; ls ail exceptionally well-told story of village lno, early iu the last century, upon tne wild loriishiro moorland country at tiho head of tiie Dales. Tiie principal character!) aro a young squire, Kit Wade, his bonny, trustfully loving sweetheart, a yeoman farmer's dauguter, Barbara Ford, and a country doctor, Br, Thwaite, who devotes his lilo to ligtiting tho terrible "whito sickness," otherwise consumption, which in tho early year.-, oi the Victorian era proved sucn an a..iui scourge m many Aortli Country districts. In his anxiety to secure greater scientific knowjetigo of tlio fell diseasu which has kliieu so many of the Dalesmen,, tho doctor engages two villagers to exuurne tlio body ot a man who had died.oi the "wliiie sickness." Tho "body suatchers" aro disturbed whilst currying tiie corpse to the doctor's house, and tho young squire finds the body on the roadside, Ho takes it to be that of tho dead man's twin brother, a notorious poacher witji whom he has been on ill terms, and as such the corpse is accepted by a, stupid old rural constable. For a time, tho squire, although the verdict at tho inquest nominally clears him, is under a cloud, but in the long run the poacher, still woll and sound, and posing as tho ghost of his dead' brother, is captured. Dr. Thwaite, who is himself stricken unto death by Uio diseaso ho has so manfully combated in others, unfolds tho truth as to the "murder," and Kit and his Barbara aro happily united. As may lie seen, tho story has a strong dramatic interest. but its chief merit lies in its excellent character drawing. Mr. Sutcliile's Yorkshire farmers and villagers aro as good in thoir way as Mr. Thomas Hardy's Wessex rustics, and ho is to be thanked also for not overdoing his dialect. A capital story in its own class.