SMOOTH AND TOUGH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 660, 29 February 1952, Page 13

SMOOTH AND TOUGH

THE BRIDE REGRETS, . by’ Marjorie Carleton; Michael Joseph. English price, 9/6. y NIGHT MAN, by Allan Ullman, from the screen play by Lucille Fletcher; Victor Gollancz, Engish price, 9/6. NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP, by Elick .Moll; Peter Davies. English price, 9/6. ‘HERE are thrillers that, though they deal with violence, have a kindly and even an urbane background, and thrillers that are tough. through and through. In plot, characterisation and style, The Bride Regrets is an exceptionally good story of the first kind. A young woman, left alone in the world and without much experience, marries a man a good deal older than nerself, and they start off on their honeymoon. Gradually it is conveyed to the reader. that the husband is another Smith of brides-in-the-bath infamy, who plans to kill his wife for her money. The tension as the woman comes to_ suspect him, and other people are drawn into the plot, is painful, but is skilfully relieved by the wit of the writing, and the humanity of some of the other characters. Humour and sentiment lap the edges of threatened -tragedy, and Marjorie Carleton moves easily from one aspect to another. The two tough thrillers come from the screen, but the more impressive, Night Sleep, was a novelette

first. They owe much to psychology, and use the flash-back. In Night Man, an ill-used affection-starved daughter sees her lover drawn to her dominating and morally worthless mother, and revenges herself by fastening the mother’s death, for which she is responsible, as murder on the man, Before he goes to gaol for a long term he swears vengeance, and the tale opens when years late: she fears the process has begun. If [ find this book only moderately successful, it may be because the author has not evoked sufficient sympathy for the woman. Night Without Sleep is tauter and more profound, a brilliantiv planned and written study of character in decay. A once successful man who has run to seed, waking early in the morn- | ing after a night of dissipation, wonders | with horror what has been happening to him since he saw his wife off the previous afternoon. The story is his re-. construction of those 12 hours or so piece by piece, interspersed with bits of past dialogue with his psycho-analyst. When the cycle of memory has been completed there comes, like a blow in the face to the reader, one of the most startling denouements I have ever encountered. This is a noteworthy example of a new approach and tech- |

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