NEW WINE. By Geoffrey Moss. (Hutchinson. 7s. 6d.) —Mr. Geoffrey
Moss shows us in his new novel the cabaret life of Roumania in a very unpleasant aspect. Tim Malone, the sick horse trainer, and Toni, his plucky French wife, who earns their living by her appearance at the ' Rat Mort,' are both life-like figures for whom the reader will feel an exas- perated affection. But the details of Toni's daily, or rather nightly, employment are sordid to a degree and produce a feeling which can only be described as nauseating. It may be presumed that this is the effect desired by the author, and if so he has succeeded. The second half of the book, in which temptation assails Toni through her falling in love with a young secretary of the British Legation, is more interesting. Mr. Geoffrey Moss is at his -best when he describes how his heroine obtains the money to send her husband to a Viennese clinic from her lover, who believes her to be Miss Malone. The atmosphere and characters of the British Legation are given with a fidelity impossible except to a writer familiar with diplomats abroad. The final scene in which the British Minister reveals Toni's secret will enlist the sympathies of most readers on behalf of that entirely amoral young person. It must, however, be confessed that the particular phase of modern life which is the subject of the book is exceedingly unattractive.
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