New-York tribune., 1920-10-31
Stories Of Mystery

the years output that Is in on q
shelf TO the right of Tutt and Mr..
Tut; nalf dozen or more novels that
will serve to move thought away from
business worries and the price Of coal
These books, of an ephemeral existence
read one season and forgotten the next,
find their causes of being in the realm
of the crook They have for their high
lights stolen jewels, men tracking an i'll
dividual with sinister purpose, plortings
in dark nooAs and violent deaths. One
cannot omit them from his cataiogue o.
the years fiction, for there are. and
have been, men-the late Senator Hoar.
Of Massachusetts, was one-wno coli
fess to a weakness for a sequestered
hour with q rattling live mystery story.
We lead off with Harold MscGrath.
who, IN his The Drums of Jeopardy
/ Doubleday, Page & Co.., gave rein
to his skyrocketing Imagination and
his skill in knotting and untangling
=. web = intrigue.
Out of&rope and Asia, by a wild
flight acr ss~:qtinents and seas, comes
a. hawk-aV~l ft%Rw, ,~ay.ag to sa's'g
with splends4 toner; blue, red, yellow
violet and green, ina ..of them with
histories that reached bsS* into dim
centuries, histories of murder and -...-.s -
agd envy" He plays violin divineiS
and he lures the heart out OF pretty
Kitty Conover, who falls into the path
of his flight from vindictve and ra-
pacious pursuers and battles for him
with all the nerve and resource Of
true newspaper woman.
Back of these twain, a comfortable
reserve, is Guilty, correspondent with
an international fame, authority on
jewels, who is drawn into the tide
way of this engrossing yarn through
his fatherly love of Kitty-he wishes
he we're younger-his interest in tho
strange refugee and his passion for
precious stones. In its class. tbs is
an o. X. sto-v
The second novel Of this group lacks
the sustained thrill of MacGrath's mar
rative. Rather naive in spots, with F.
, penchant for aphoristic remark. Fire
Of Youth (Little, Brown & Coz, bv
! Henry James Forman, contrves 20 be
, interesting in its account of the thefr
, and the pursuit Of a beautiful ruby,
an heirloom IN the family of one an
thopy West. The boy goes TO Har-
Va I'd 1,ha
freshman he gets room in the Yard.
Immediately after his graduation, toi-
. lowing in the road of his father, who
, had established paper in a Nebraska
/ country town, he migrates to New York
. and becomes reporter on the staff
Of The Planet. The lure Of lower
Broadway and Wall Street divorces him
, from journalism and be enters the
:, Office of a firm OF brokers, where ono
9 day-it is an hour Of fate for him
! steps in Wilma Vanleer, creature %
+ Times Square by night, with an apart
ment conveniently situated On West
Fortieth Street. Into her clutches tum-
bles the rustic Anthony, and out Of the
consequent melee of infatuation and
,. foolishness, fits Wilma with the rub
the family jewel. The chapters Of the
book begin to spurt along with the sc.
! locity of moving picture under high
speed. Over the Atlantic hastens An
Ebony, and then TO France and the war
locking for Vilraa and her booty. Al
in vain.
I Of course, affairs cannot 90 on Il
i this way forever in a true blue mys
T terry tale. Back in New York, OF
I Fifty-ninth Street, along with Adel'
y Gray, his boyhood chum in old Ne
o braska days, he discovers happines
+ and, mirabile dictu and visu, the ruby
e A chart Of this story, as it adapts itsel
: to New York, shows pinpoints o.
n Twenty-third Street, between Lexing
1t ton and Fourth avenues, where An
l. thony boarded when Planet reporter
h Forty second Street, ovcrlookiri
3 Bryant Park. where Wilma had he
lie apartment; a restaurant on Thirty
Is ninth Street; II Broadway, the hcm
ls of the firm OF brokers, and house ol
- (Captiuued on purs tent