Books: Good Books: Jun. 25, 1923

The following estimates of books much in the public eye were made after careful consideration of the trend of critical opinion:

IN DARK PLACES—John Russell— Knopf ($2.50). Twelve tales of savage environments and more or less savage people by the author of Where the Pavement Ends. A tourist searches for “the color of the East” and finds it strangely crim-son—a tropical grafter fights to the death so no one may rob his superiors but himself—criminals, escaping on a former slave ship fall into the hands of the deadly justice of the vampire bats—and so on. The yarns are varied, colorful, exciting, skilfully told, with a knowledge of strange lands and stranger characters that is obviously firsthand. Neither Kipling nor Conrad, In Dark Places is nevertheless a first-class book of adventurous short stories—and it would be only carping to criticize it for not being the masterpiece it does not pretend to be.

THE COPPER Box—J. S. Fletcher— Doran ($1.75). Caught in a snow-storm on the Scottish Border, a young artist seeks shelter in a lonely, high-turreted house where he finds a pretty girl, her guardian, a cynical, mysterious amateur of the arts, and, on the mantlepiece, a copper box marked with a strange crest. Adventures come thick and fast, but there are no murders. The coil is unwound at last to a happy ending. A slight, debonair mystery story, lightly and engagingly executed.

THE WRONG SHADOW—Harold Brighouse—McBride ($2.00). Two clerks, Bassett and Wyler, scheme to become millionaires by inventing a new patent medicine. They quarrel and Wyler disappears, leaving behind a formula which he had imagined to be a fizzle but which Bassett discovers, uses and builds upon it a very substantial fortune. But his grapes are sour—he feels he owes at least half his fortune to Wyler. Wyler cannot be found, but his ectoplasm haunts Bassett’s conscience. He does his best to salve said conscience, but ineffectively—and then, just at the wrong moment, Wyler reappears. However, do not be alarmed, for all turns out well. And, oh yes, the love interest is there. A some-what doughy comedy, which shows the dangers of killing a perfectly good fictional idea with too much kindness and far too many words.

THE GOLDEN FLEECE—Padraic Colum—Macmillan ($2.00). The cycle of Greek legends that concern Jason and the rest of his varsity crew most admirably retold for children by a poet and artist.