Books Reviewed

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 659, 10 May 1929, Page 14

Books Reviewed

EDGAR WALLACE IS BACK FRESH from a holiday from the writing of full-length novels, Edgar Wallace, most prolific and most popular of story-tellers, thrills us again. “The IndiaRubber Men” is in his best vein —and that means an exciting and most satisfactory evening by the fireside, for his readers. The India-Rubber Men themselves are a well-organised and daring band of robbers of banks and jewellery shops in London, with ramifications abroad, but the head of the gang has another little plot in hand. This plot concerns the future of a girl in whom the detective-inspector in charge of the efforts to round up the gang begins to take an interest. The identity of the gang-leader is w T ell hidden, and there is much excitement before everything ends well for law and order. We enjoyed this book. “The India-Rubber Men.’* Edgar Wallace. Hodder and Stoughton, London. Our copy from the publishers* Australian re-' presentative. A Pearl of a Girl. In “Blue Ruin,” Miss Grace Livingston Hill’s last novel, Lynette, the heroine, is described as “a pearl of a girl, heart of gold, spirit of fire and dew.” So that seems perfectly all right. Dana Whipple starts out to be the hero, but in spite of “supple, symmetrical form, heavy, waving crest of dark hair, great dark eyes and facile lips that could so lightly curve into a smile,” he fails to make the pace, and has in the end to content himself with Jessie Belle, “whom Grandma would call Jezebel,” and who naturally puts quite a lot of powder on her nose. Lynette, on the other hand, finds perfect happiness with a man whose eyes are likts “blue plush.” The romance of these young people—not forgetting Grandma, who creates a very tense scene by spanking Jezebel -with her crutch —should interest many and amuse more. “Blue Ruin.” Grace Livingston Hill. Lippincott. Our copy through Whitcombe and Tombs. Ltd.