As for the stories
themselves, really all that need be said is to congratulate Mrs. MARY
ROBERTS RINEHART on the ingenuity with which she can tell what seems
an obvious intrigue yet keep a surprise in reserve. I suppose it is
because they come to us from America that certain of the episodes turn
upon incidents in the Suffrage struggle, tale-fodder that our own
militant novelists have long happily discarded. Of the others I think
I myself would award the palm to one called "The Family Friend," a
genially cynical little comedy of encouraged courtship, of which the
end seems to be visible from the beginning, but isn't. Altogether,
what I might call a Canute; in other words a book for the deck-chair,
not too absorbing to endanger your shoes, however close you read it to
the advancing wave.
* * * * *
I think I should best describe the characteristic quality of
_Four Blind Mice_ (LANE) as geniality. The scene of it is
Burmah--astonishing, when you consider the host of novels about the
rest of India, that so few should employ this equally picturesque
setting--and it is quickly apparent that what Mr. C.C. LOWIS doesn't
know at first hand about Rangoon is not likely to be missed. The
tale itself is a good-humoured little comedy of European and native
intrigue, showing how one section of the populace strove as usual to
ease the white man's burden by flirtation and gossip, and the other
to get the best for themselves by unlimited roguery and chicane.
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