READABLE NOVELS
MR. CROSBIE GARSTIN contrives to get a truly romantic atmosphere into his new novel, The West Wind (Heinemann, 7s. 6d.), which is the last of a trilogy dealing with the Cornish seaboard in the eighteenth century. The best and most exciting section of the book is that in which Ortho Penhale; the principal figure, is taken prisoner while privateering, falling into the hands of the Spaniards. The third, the smuggling section, is slightly disappointing, though the end, in which Ortho lays down his life for his illegitimate son, is very effective. * * * 'The names .the chapters in Mr. Augustus Muir's new thriller, The Black Pavilion Methuen, 38. 6d. net), are as exciting reading as the headlines of a news- paper broadsheet, but the story is almost too mysterious to be interesting. * * * The Tragedies of Mr. Pip, by Edgar Jepson (Herbert Jenkins, 7s. 6d. net) It will seem to the reader that Mr. Pip's special tragedy was that he was forced by circumstances to marry a woman whom he did not parti- eularly care about. We leave him on the last page, however, reconciled to the fate which has invested him unexpectedly with a baronetage and a wife. The early part of the story is very entertaining and Mr. Pip himself is an attractive figure. * * * Far from Miss Tynan's world are the horrors of death-duties and super-tax, and in The Heiress of Wyke (Ward, Lock, 7s. 6d. net) we have a picture seen through rose-coloured spectacles of a beautiful and accomplished young lady. Anne Verrinder is, however, a little like the portrait of Queen Elizabeth which was painted without any shadows, for there is no relief in the brightness of the picture presented. But we are always grateful to Miss Tynan for showing us how the world appears to a confirmed optimist.
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