Jottings

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 24, 24 December 1931, Unnumbered Page

Jottings

N "A Certain Man," Mr. Oliver Onions tells a good story, embracing many angles of interest and originality. ‘timarily the history of a period in the fe of Christopher Darley, advertising manager of the M.P.G. Combine, and Merger, reputable householder, father of a family, and still alert and springy enough, though with silvering temples. There are also Jill and Nickey and Rennie, extremely modern young things, Nicky a waiter and dancing partner, Jill in a flower-shop en route to matrimony, and her friend Omphale graduating for the oldest profession in the world. : On the bus that trumbles him daily to his dry-as-dust office, Christopher holds strange converse with an elusiye Stranger, with soothing effect on doubts and difficulties that beset the harassed head of his spectacular family and its entourage. But this strange acquaintance is but a ship that passes in the . night on Christopher's horizon, leaving, however, a curious legacy in the shape of a garment, of curious fashion and texture, that palely glistens in the night-time, and is possessed of certain blood-curling eccentricities. Donuned by Christopher, the coat of destiny proves power of allaying the fret and fume of this world’s woes, healing scars of the spirit, and instilling a high spiritual nobility. Conveyed rather than described are its strange qualities, and there are illusive and slightly perplexing references to oldtime orgies and sinister heathen rites. Sported in everyday surroundings of this year of grace, the coat proves entirely incompatible with the materialistic outlook and rampant individualism of the protagonists of life’s poor play; but for a time the spell works, and the moody and unsympathetic hus- , band and father burgeons into a gay generosity and comptehending com‘panionship like a rose in bloom. ‘There are bad lapses, however, for the cout loses inspirational power, and a repentant Christopher sets off for a far country to study Egyptology and conmmune with sphynxian mysteries. A strange tale, with a dash of the supernatural, a suggestion of unknown horror, set in juxtaposition with excellent pictures of a moder household and its yearly holiday at Le Touquet. Bd A * A VERY interesting series enlled "The Shilling Library of a IIundred Books" has been launched by Burns, Oates and Washbourne. It consists of standard Roman Catholic works of-fiction, spiritual reading, theology and lives of the Saints, covering a very wide range of authors from all over Europe,

R. J. 8, FLETCHER has many adnirers, who will welcome the news that he has collected a number of his short stories under the title of "The Man in No. 8." These tales of crime and mystery have appeared in sundry English and American magazines, and ure indicative of his exceedingly skil-

ful manipulation of his ingenious plots, his flair for characterisation, and his breezy and engaging literary style. Most of them thrillers, with a sustained interest that euchains. there are others of a more subtle attraction, uotably a Loudon idyllic trifle conveyed with a Wistful aud graceful charu.,

uss MARGERY ALLINGHAM’S "thriller," "Police at the Funeral," is to be recommended. It has a quality usually wanting in detective works, nud is a very ingenious tale of murders in the Trumpington house, Our sympathies are intrigued, we read on breathlessly, and feel certain that conviction shall be sheeted home to one of two people. In either case we shall regret it. Then comes the authentic surprise, without which the best-writ-ten "thriller" falls flat. Hiven the most inveterate "guesser"? will find it hard to elucidate this cleverly contrived fictional farrago, and when the mystery is solved and the story ends with considerable eclat it is realised that Miss Allingham is to be reckoned within the field of the detective novel. % % + RS. SARAH GERTRUDE MITLLIN’S novels anent South African life have a large public, which will welcome with ayidity her latest story, "The Sons of Mrs. Aab.? And there will be no disappointment, for it is in the author’s best vein. Tragic, grim and sordid in parts though it is, the story enchains interest from cover to cover. It treats of the unlucky Gideon Aab, a plaything of malignant fate. Everything goes against him, his luck in the diamond fields fluctuates, his domestic relationships are of unsympathetic nature, and the brother who is "wanting" refuxes to shuffle off this mortal coil and is a continuing millstone round the neck of the unhuppy Gideon. There are several subsidiary stories and. an impressive denouement, the whole being related in Mrs. Millin’s most admirable literury manner.

QRIGINALITY is a rare attribute, but it is exemplified in a volume of short stories entitled "The Fothergill Omnibus." There are eighteen tiles in the book, and they are all written nround the same plot by well-known authors. The plot set by Mr. Fothergiil for treatment by his notable contributors is the somewhat hackneyed one of a man who writes letters to an unknown, which has been a_ periodical trick of the writing trade for a goad many years. Marriage finishes for the nonce the romanticism thereby engendered. After a time, however, when "domesticity palls, the correspondence is again entered into, only to discover that the intriguing unknown is the wife who has turned out not altogether satisfactorily. The distinguished coterie who elucidate this theme with wit and wisdom is composed of such literary idols as Mr. Chesterton, Mr. Bullett (who gives a very unusual twist to his narrative), Mr, Coppard, Mr. J. «, Squire, Mr. Thomas Burke. and Misy Delatield. Truly a galaxy of stars.