STRANGE MOON. By T. S. Stribling. (Heinemann. 7s. 6d.)-Mr. Stribling
returns in this novel to Venezuela. But the present story, unlike his Fombombo, is not a serious study of Venezuelan life, but a clever excursion in melodrama. Eugene Manners is an ingenuous New Jersey engineer, who goes south to stake an oil claim for his firm. He falls an easy prey to the wiles of Ramon Valera, a Venezuelan aristocrat, and, in spite of repeated and very uncomfortable disillusion- ments, he continues, with humorous naiveté, to be outwitted. The action is complicated by an American naval intelligence officer in disguise and by the peon Pacheco, who has a sound legal claim to the land in which the oil is bored, and who hates both Manners and Valera. There is plenty of well-staged excitement before Manners, finding solace in the arms of Sola Merida, the dancing girl, at last abandons the fight, counting oil well lost for love.
Previous page
