The voracious novel-reader is apt to hold detective stories in the same regard that the Scotchman is supposed to entertain towards whisky—some are better than others, but there are no really bad ones. The Pointing Man (HUTCHINSON) is better than most, in the first place because it takes us "east of Suez"—a pleasant change from the four-mile radius to which the popular sleuths of fiction mostly confine their activities; and, secondly, because it combines a maximum of sinister mystery with a minimum of actual bloodshed; and, lastly, because our credulity is not strained unduly either by the superhuman ingenuity of the hunter or an excess of diabolical cunning on the part of the quarry. Otherwise the story possesses the usual features. There is the clever young detective, in whose company we expectantly scour the bazaars and alleys of Mangadone in search of a missing boy. There are Chinamen and Burmese, opium dens and curio shops, temples and go-downs. Miss MARJORIE DOUIE has more than a superficial knowledge of her stage setting, and gets plenty of movement and colour into it. And if she has elaborated the characters and inter-play of her Anglo-Burmese colony to an extent that is not justified either by their connection with the plot or the necessity of mystifying the reader we must forgive her because she does it very well—so well indeed that we may hope to see The Pointing Man, excellent as it is in its way, succeeded by a contribution to Anglo-Oriental literature that will do ampler justice to Miss DOUIE'S unquestionable gifts.
Our writers appear willing converts to my own favourite theory that the public is, like a child, best pleased to hear the tales that it already knows by heart. The latest exponent of this is the lady who prefers to be called only "The Author of An Odd Farmhouse." Her new little book, Your Unprofitable Servant (WESTALL), is a record of domestic happenings and impressions during the early phases of the War. The thing is skilfully done, and in the result carries you with interest from page to page; though (as I hint) the history of those August days, when Barbarism came forth to battle and Civilisation regretfully unpacked its holiday suit-cases, can hardly appeal now with the freshness of revelation. Still, the writer brings undeniable gifts to her more than twice-told tale. She has, for example, perception and a turn of phrase very pleasant, as when she speaks of the shops in darkened London conducting the last hour of business under lowered awnings, "as if it were a liaison." There are many such rewarding passages, some perhaps a little facile, but, taken together, quite enough to make this unpretentious little volume a very agreeable companion for the few moments of leisure which are all that most of us can get in these strenuous days.
I enjoyed at a pleasant sitting the whole of Mr. FRANK SWINNERTON'S Nocturne (SECKER). I don't quite know (and I don't see how the author can quite know) whether his portraits of pretty self-willed Jenny and plain love-hungry Emmy, the daughters of the superannuated iron-moulder, are true to life, but they are extraordinarily plausible. Not a word or a mood or a move in the inter-play of five characters in four hours of a single night, the two girls and "Pa," and Alf and Keith, the sailor and almost gentleman who was Jenny's lover, seemed to me out of place. The little scene in the cabin of the yacht between Jenny and Keith is a quite brilliant study in selective realism. Take the trouble to look back on the finished chapters and see how much Mr. SWINNERTON has told you in how few strokes, and you will realise the fine and precise artistry of this attractive volume. I can see the lights, the silver and the red glow of the wine; and I follow the flashes and pouts and tearful pride of Jenny, and Keith's patient, embarrassed, masterful wooing as if I had been shamefully eavesdropping.
Fool Divine (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) stands to some extent in a position unique among novels in that its heroine is also its villainess, or at least the wrecker of its hero. Nevile del Varna, the lady in question, is indeed the only female character in the tale, and has therefore naturally to work double tides. What happened was that young Christopher, a superman and hero, dedicate, as a volunteer, to the unending warfare of science against the evil goddess of the Tropics, yellow fever, met this more human divinity when on his journey to the scene of action, and, like a more celebrated predecessor, "turned aside to her." Then, naturally enough, when Nevile has gotten him for her husband and when love of her has caused him to abandon his project of self-sacrifice, she repays him with scorn. And as the unhappy Christopher already scorns himself the rest of the book (till the final chapters) is a record of deterioration more clever than exactly cheerful. The moral of it all being, I suppose, that if you are wedded to an ideal you should beware of taking to yourself a mortal wife, for that means bigamy. Incidentally the book contains some wonderfully impressive pictures of tropical life and of the general beastliness of existence on a rubber plantation. At the end, as I have indicated, regeneration comes for Christopher—though I will not reveal just how this happens. There is also a subsidiary interest in the revolutionary affairs of Cuba, which the much-employed Nevile appears to manage, as a local Joan of Arc, in her spare moments; and altogether the book can be recommended as one that will at least take you well away from the discomforts of here and now.
