Book Notes

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 36, 18 March 1932, Unnumbered Page

Book Notes

1B writing "Infamous Fame," his latest novel: Mr. B. Charles Vivian has strengthened: our previous belief in his undoubted talent. General Sir Howard Burne, a retired military man, has a well-guarded secret, shared only by himself and a man whom justifiably he believes to be dead. Stella, his daughter, modern and independent, becomes engaged to a friend of her childhood, Captain Langley, of the Indian Army, who has a rival in Stend, a young inventor, solid and _ reliable. Sir _ Howard is worried by anonymous let- * ters which herald the return of Franklin; long supposed dead. Franklin discloses his secret to a few of the general’s friends, and driven to desperation, Sir Howard shoots himself on his wife's grave. In the days following his suicide, Stend proves himself a true lover, andthe unreliable Langley is displaced in Stella’s affections. The characterisation of Sir Howard Burne is striking, and one is impressed by the versatility of the author, who handles with equyl adroitness the tragedy of the general's well-kept secret, tempestuous love: affair of daughter Stella, humorous repartee of garage hands, and finally the. vim of Stend’s headlong quixotic flight to the country, eulminating in a fight with the demented victim of a great soldier’s lapse from duty. Slightly verbose in the opening chapters, Mr. Vivian's style becomes concise and coherent as the story moves on to its destined end. To the reader in search of a thoroughly entertaining novel, with cleverly-han- _ led plot, "Infamous Fame" is cordially recommended. A book well above the ordinary, original in style and matter, wid well worth adding to one’s list, the publishers being Messrs. Ward Lock and ©o., London. * . * . TPHINGS are seldom what they seem. both in and out of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. and this fact, with its far-reaching influence on lives that are superficially normal and conventional, is the keynote of "Mushroom Field." by Mabel Tyrrell, an excellent story that has recently been published. Tre tale is told in the first person by a clever woman, of limited income and independent mind, in. her. fifties when the story opens, serene, competent, and self-possesse(. In the past year, however, that witty and wideawake spinster, known to her intimates as "Charley," has had a passionate interlude. which she has jealously guarded from the knowledge even of those most near and dear. Her lover is long dead, but there is tangible evidence of a love story, all too brief and destined to sorThe characters are etched wilh practiyged skill, from the spirit-tortured man of fifty striving to expiate sin and tragedy, to a pair of young lovers, modern, frank and delightful. * ba * "THE eight stories in "Satan’s Circus." by Lady Eleanor Smith. are slight in texture, but they have a potent lure of their own, One or {two of them are drab and sordid in atmosphere, others have a touch of the * macabre, most of them are cast in or \ near the bizarre confines of the. showman’s tent or the gipsy encampment. Mhe characterisation is excellent, noiably that of the twin trapezists, whose lives at one crucial moment of suspense hang over the illimitable void. Then there is 2 memorable sketch of a "strung man," instinct with a haunt-

ing pathos, and the wife of the cireus owner is limned as a singularly unpleasant female whom we should not like to meet outside the world of fietion. Lady Eleanor Smith has already made he mame, and this hook does nothing to belie the literary reputation she has achieved. * * * [* "The Harbourmaster," &y William Mckee, the author is af the top of his form. and that is high praise. as readers of his former novels do not need to" he assured. In style and matter largely deriving from Joseph Conrad, the author yet retains great originality, force, and full-blooded realisation of romance on land and sea,

Particularly the latter, for his tales of those that go down to the sea in ships are virile and magnificent in their genre, Captain Fraley is his hero, and the curious tale of his wanderings over the world and excursions into the field of the emotions is told by his friend. Chief Engineer Spenlove of the ('amotan, who unfolds’ the strange tale while his ship is detained for the nonce in the harbour of Puerto Balbos. Mrs. Fraley, the wife of the harbourmaster, has just died. and Fraley has hlown ont his brains. The engineer explains the raison d’etre of the whole dire tragedy, somewhat too lengthily perhaps, but the ‘interest is well sustained,

HAT yersatile and industrious *novelist, Mr. Gilbert Frankau, in "Christopher Strong" tells the story of a grocer who is also a millionaire, who learns much of humanity through his ill-fated love for Lady Felicity Darrington, the great Goddess’ of Speed. There is much excellent writing anent big business, and an -extremely thrilling description of a motor race, Also, the © characterdrawing is out of the common good, and there are glimpses of. literary: bypaths not usually vouchsafed to readers of present-day fiction. It is pre(dicted Mr. Frankaw’s latest story will be yery popular, and add. futther laurels to those already bestowed. by his many enthusiastic admirers. — . * * e "REYMER'S WAKE" is a gentle and moving story. The author is Mary McCarvill; it is a first effort at fiction, and an interesting and moving one. Its charm lies in the quaint and delightful style in which the simple tale is-set forth. There is an old man who, like many another in books and out of them, is fond of making rhymlets when and where he can. To the little Irish village which pulls at’ his heartstrings. he returns to die, and after he has gone from them the friends who loved him talk of old Peter and what manner of man he was. Characterisation is singularly well conveyed, in particular the attractive Duynet, and one will look with considerable interest for the advent of another novel from the pen of Miss McCarvill. . : * * * Not to put too fine a point upon it, in "Good Times" Peggy Deane i a blackmailer, at least in intention, She is fortunate, however, in that her quarry is possessed of an unusual share of the old-fashioned masculine quality of chivalry. Mr. Drawhell’s hero is & rising playwright. and: he comes ont of his enconnter very well. Tn fact, instead of denouncing her nunserupulous intent. he appoints her as his secretary, partly impelled thereto, it is evldent. by Peggy's manifest charms of face and figure and insidious feminine wile. As it furns ont, she makes a very good secretary. helping her patron, with signal success, un the difficult slopes of Parnassus. There are vivacious seenes set in Tiondon and New York, and the whole is set forth in light-hearted and entertaining vein. * * * N "Winter Wheat." hy Edgar Woodward. capital is made of the life of ihe racehorse and the hunting-field. the plot hingeing. without much originality. upon the life of a woman who marries the wrong man. Poverty in a materialistic world proves. a fertile hatching-ground of hnman woe, and in this case is the moving motive in Fthel Wantage’s marriage with Geoffrey. who is a bullying sensualist. instend of his hrother, wham she loves well, Tltimately ‘the hrshand hecomes & eripple, whose evil consuming passion it is to convict his wife of pursning an illicit love to its fulfilment. Tn inteniion a murderer. he himself dies instead of his brother Paul. but the evil that he did lives after him. and. a emireh of unhappiness remains to clond the hapniness that is . within sight. Ultimately that passes. hosyever, and all ends well in this conyine {ngly-told tale. _--