Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-04-28

drivers and passengers and the popu-
lace roundabout. Such recession gives
this good story-teller not only an un-
Improbable alibi for us all, but it
permits the glamour of bygone times to
come toward us in It's enchantment.
1t gets us out from under foot as
well where, otherwise, we would be
clogging up the story with our personal
mendacity. with our individual denials.
Freed, therefore, and provided with an
illuminating perspective of the way it
used to be, Mrs Rinehart weaves us,
adroitly and Understandings, not only
substantial and absorbing novel, but
at the same time draws picture that,
at heart, Is the very spit and image
of your strange adventure" and mine
that of being alive and trying to
make go Of 1t right now in this
year, 1929.
WE FORGET BECAUSE WE MUST.
BY w. B. Maxwell, author of Spins
ter of this Parish" etc. New York:
Doubleday, Doran g. Co.
THE continued freshness and grow
ing strength of W. B. Maxwell,
novelist derive from the fact that when
he sets out to tell a story he tells
story. With pattern of actual life
before him he summons to his hand
| men and women who, out of the in
| finite variety of human nature, are Spe-
cially fitted to objectify that pattern.
Skilled as a story teller by way of
score Of successful novels, he has learn
ed to devote himself exclusively to the
characters whom he has selected to
work out the theme before them and
| him. There is no preachment linger-
! ing about to lead any one astray. There
Is no lesson, no scientific truth, no
subtle philosophy, no political idealism,
| in this writer's plan. to be Sugar-coated
| for the readers easy intaking. Just
story, true as life and instinct with
| the essential drama of life And here
| Is another one of them. A couple of
generations are involved. Young love
with its immemorial disappointments
| Marriage with Its age-old disillusion-
ment.. This theme Is, you see, universal.
| The lover Is disloyal. Or it may be
the husband-or, Just possibly it may
be the maid or the wife. Not so likely
to be these two, however. Here it was
! the lover with the first of these two
| generations. In the second one it was
| the young husband who proved made
] quate. The earlier one offers to the
I young woman a makeshift marriage
| Then, when love came to the wife
why, then, 1t was the husband who
left the narrow path of conjugal recti-
tude. So, throughout, there is this out
of-step progression with, at the last
that pathetic compromise which appears
TO be the spiritleSs motive power of
welded existence And all through the
familiar to-do there are forgettings-
! to forget this or that, because, finally,
to forget is the single condition upon
which life can move forward. A dismal
tale? No, not at all. These are in
teresting men and women, recognizable.
too. Trust w. B. Maxwell for that
He has created many Of the human
tribe. So he has facile hand with
the dust Of the earth.
| A Maxwell novel, significant with
understanding. dramatic in its makeup
An absorbing inlook upon love and
| marriage, upon the essential mirage OF
happiness for all
SUMNER LIGHTNING. By George
F. Hummel, author of Evelyn
Granger" etc. New York: Horace
Liveright.
TN the jam Of novels and novelists,
!
This was a deep regret to me. For of
those who were, and still are, creating
novels by the simple formula of turn
ing humans inside out and parading
them in this stark state up and down
the world for all to see-why, of these,
George Hummel was. to me, one of the
most capable and interesting. Then
Hummel seemed to vanish. Not so. at
all. Merely negligent publisher fail
ing to be aware of my loss.
And here is George Hummel.
never would have known him. I'm
proved? Well. hardly that Different!
The painstaking realist is off duty. In
his place is an adventurer, plunging Off
the deep end into sheer romance. 1t
is over Italy-a mysterious lady
whose eyes are of the siren cast, whose
movements, dancing, are zephyrs, float
ing mists, the fight of birds, the sweep
Of leaping fountains, n everything.
And the lady Is, when it comes to her
pursuit, Of the will-o' -the-wisp order
Then the adventure deepens to the
menace of political intrigue. And there
is the mess Of Albania and Montenegro
and the rest of that corner of Europe,
deep in rivalries and projected devil
ment With the mysterious lady
part of the impending fracas-beckon-
ing, disappearing, shining family again
| In the far away. And following is the
besotted young American newsman,
forgetting his job and his paper, while
| he does turn as knight Grant. Then
the matter works around, as it would,
| to picture of Mussolini and Facismo-
and this is admirable! Mussolini
turned to the uses of clear romance. to
be sure, but a remarkable picture,
nevertheless, of the man, of the situa-
ton, of his vision and his kind of per-
| Torrance. 1t is a corking story
glamorous with the romance of day
when there was romance, and was
glamor. This is something like-even
| though it may turn out to be a mere
play-day for this young American realist
in novel writing. And, no doubt, that
is just the way it will turn out.
THE INNOCENT ACCOMPLISH. BY
Baillie Reynolds, author of THE
Spell of Sarnia," etc. New York:
Doubleday, Doran g. Co. Published
for the Crime Club, Inc.
TT happened in Switzerland, where SO
many pleasure-seekers go. limo
cent folks. bent mainly to the great
game of keeping fit" Among these
guileless ones, however, there were
others-murderers, robbers, a pseudo
scientist chasing rare butterflies by day
and doing death by night. Such Is the
material. BY way of 1t great treas
ure in jewels from one or another of
the defunct ruling houses of the nearby
countries becomes the lure for the prac-
tice of no end of original sin. The
point of the story, that which gives rise
to large share of the tension and
danger, Is the presence of two perfectly
innocent people, who, by one of the
strange maneuvers of chance, look for
all the world like the perpetrators of
the most of evil that is being done. BY
very skillful series of plausible Incl
dents and scenes these two are kept in
fear until at the right moment the
clouds of suspicion vanish-and there