... : Reviewed by e, Arnold Palmer IT is depressing to read a bad book, but it is actively painful to read a good book which you cannot understand. I cannot understand The Greater Trumps, by Charles Williams (Gollancz; 7s. 6d.). I cannot make head or tail of it, and yet I am firmly convinced that Mr. Williams is a real writer. There are parts of this novel which are masterly. There are other ...

... 'By R. C. IVoodthorpe (Nicholson Watson 7s. 6d.) THIS is a good, level-headed, well-written story of life in a public school. The school is so unfortunate as to lose its Headmaster, shot through the head. The elucidation of the mystery surround ing the crime is logical and exciting, and Mr. Wood- thorpe is to be congratulated on a neat piece of work. But he deserves even warmer congratu ...

... 71 v Clifton Robbint (Benn 78. 6d.) MR. ROBBINS'S crime is a swell crime a most elaborate murder, complete with foreigners and a superb adventuress, which, as all proper crimes should do, necessitates a trip to the Continent before it is finally cleared up. Working on familiar lines, the author gives us a Holmes and a Watson. They are called Clay Harrison and Henry. Mr. Harrison is very ...

... : Reviewed by Trevor ^Allen PROBABLY the most tense episode in our naval war was the hunting and killing of the Bismarck after the loss of the Hood. One may relive the radio excitement of that chase in Commander E. Keble Chatterton's The Royal Navy: January, 1941-- March, 1942 (Hutchinson, 21s.), a period which included also the Balona bombardment, Cape Matapan battle, and loss of ...

... Some Sp ring f^ovels a nd a few Everlastings T^ev iew e d by zA^nolv GENERALLY we overrate or under rate the art of other countries, the different voices and accents giving an air of great originality to what is often quite old and hackneyed, or obscuring for us the meaning of what is really new. I have just been reading Round Trip, by Don Tracy (Constable, 7s. 6d.); and, whatever the ...

... Short 3\ [otices Gone Rustic: by Cecil Roberts (Hodder and Stoughton, 7s. 6d.) COMPARATIVELY late in life, though still a man in the mid-thirties, Mr. Roberts caught the old-house-and-garden fever, and caught it badly, as adults do. It even started him off again, for the first time since his boyhood, on the writing of poetry. Here, in his new book, he gives us the temperature chart of his ...

... Heroes Life-size Heroic Lives: by Rafael Sabatini (Hutchinson, 21s.) Martin Luther: by Brian L unn (Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 12s. 6d.) FEW writers manage to equal Mr. Sabatini's popularity and retain at the same time the respect of their fellows. In the case of Mr. Sabatini, it is easier to account for the respect than the popularity. He is a sound craftsman, with nothing meretricious ...

... Books: New Novels Worth Reading Reviewed by Arnold Palmer BOOKS, like people, often succeed for the wrong reasons, or at least for their weak nesses and not their strengths. It may well be that Mr. Nigel Balchin will be a little confused by the congratulations which he is likely to receive for his new novel, Lightbody on Liberty (Collins, 7s. 6d.), since those congratulations will usually be ...

... New Plays up to Standard By Maitland Davidson Deadlock. Bu May Edginton. (Comedy.) THE question of how much theatre audiences ought to get for their good money as expended at the box office-- running as high as fourteen shillings for a single stall, with even bigger totals in some cases-- has been spot-lighted into special prominence by the production at the Comedy of Deadlock, an unskilfully ...

... : Reviewed by Trevor ?yfllen JAMES GLOVER dubbed actresses who married titles the actressocracy of the stage proper-- and improper, adding that the habit dated from the eighties until which period coronets and callisthenics and the peer and the pirouetter were family misalliances. But times have altered, and this social ostracism is now a thing of the past. In Chorus to Coronet (British ...

... The Queen of Spades by F. J. Morrison (Collins, 7s. 6d.) THE heroine of this novel is a restau rant, and Mr. Morrison has woven a story out of the lives of the diners, and the influence of the dinner upon their lives. It is an ingenious idea, and although he has knitted his pattern a little too neatly and tightly, the author has made a good joh of it on the whole. A pleasant, lively book. But ...

... : bv J. M. Loch (Methuen, 7s. 6d.) ON the basis of an old Irish story of a man who was haunted by a ha'penny he couldn't lose, Mr. Loch has written an amusing, fantastic tale rather self-consciously fantastic, but still amusing. ...