Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-07-12
~ IDA GILBERT MYERT
I'm Explanation an Enigma Of History
Mary E. WallerS Nezv NoveI-A Wide
Variey torLovers Of Fiction.

SPEED. BY Frank Hawks New York: Brewer,
Warren & Putnam.
YOU recall in your English course at school
coming to the place and time when piety
set itself against those gorgeous myths and
legends representing pagan beliefs and heather
practices. Clearly, something had TO be done
about 1t, something to counterfeit to obiterate
even, such CONTAINING tive writings. And there
rose the fashion Of taking abstract attributes
Of man-honesty courage, truthfulness, meek
ness and so on and so on-of filling these out
to individual measure for the purpose Of puri-
flying legend, story, literature. 1t was no great
success. That Is, 1t was no lasting success.
Nobody ever reads these platitudes Of morality,
dressed up in clothes and behaving no red
blooded human ever did behave. All this to
say that right here in Speed" is example
of that very age, of that very kind of literature.
But-n nothing short of genius itself Frank
Hawks has created, out of an idea, nothing
more, a hero that belongs by right-not with
the moralities-but with the old heroic myths
where Jupiter and Apollo and Neptune and the
rest Of the gods made the world rather glo-
rious place to move around in.
Hawks has taken Speed" just speed. This
he has visualized to its own tremendous soul,
action. He has traced it from its birth
maybe savage lying On a log in the river and
making the godlike discovery that by using his
hands. maybe his legs. too, he could make the
log move faster, sending him on his way in an
incredible celerity-for him. Again and again,
Hawks cites the savage, gaining time. And the
slowly growing man, also gaining time in his
new ways, till at last-and at last, through
thousand inventions and growths and changed
conditions, Speed comes to be the ruler Of the
world. I advise you TO read that chapter Of
Frank Hawks new book Don't miss 1t. Then,
lighting on the ground. so to speak, you will go
along with this very live book TO survey some
Of the sequences Of speed and some of its prom
ises for every part of the inclusive present
world OF economics industry, sup
ply and demand.
What Speed Means to Business" 'r1on-
Stop Across the Continent" 1T Gets to Be a
Habit" the Flying Reporter and so on, with
everybody flying in series of adventures, so
stirring, so well put so authentic and so prom
Using as to incline the reader to drop the story
and rush out in search of wings and the taking
of this new habit A writer II you please
as well a flyer.
THE MONK'S-HOOD MURDERS. By the
Edingtons, authors Of 1.-The Studio Murder
Mystery" ETC. New York: The Cosmopolitan
Book Corporation
nh, come on. Let's stop working. Let's 90
~ to q murder. This one.
You readily recall that pretty, Towering
plant In the old garden wolfsbane, monks
hood. Innocent there. But distilled. chemical
lied, that guileless plant becomes the poison
aconite.
Not unclever, the choice Of this mode OF
sending people OF. It works while the MUIR
derer sleeps, provided he has taken care to
leave smudges Of the deadly stuff just where
the victim whose habit he knows, will be sure
to pass his hands over it. and then, as Ger
tainly, to touch his lips in any one Of dozen
accidental ways.
Short shrift this gives the 1uckless con-
demned one. short story, too. Hardly longer
than the usual obituary notice. But these are
story tellers, and so, with just this weapon in
hand, they cast about for q setting OF interest
A newspaper office and old Josiah Wardock the
meanest man alive. for its owner and editor.
A good start, or 30 it looks. Nobody has
bigger load Of hatred piled up against him
than old Wardock. He knows it and glories
in 1t. He Is rich, he has O powerful paper.
At moments Josiah almost thinks he's God.
Then one day the big newsman Is found
dead in his ONCE Just outside, with glazed
windows In between, is the news ROOM But
no one was seen in his room, nothing was
heard. That Is the beginning Of well and
plausibly complicated plot involving other
deaths and o more than commonly ingenious
program Of trailing clues and abandoning the
most Of them for the slowly narrowing net Of
ultimate disclosure. There elements Of new
outlook here, of fresh attack, that nowadays
are hard 10 find in the hard-pushed crime
story. The detective work, such, Is good,
not exaggerated and overdrawn, SO much of
1t has come to be. A young police court re-
porter Is reanty OF clever ana engaging boy
hood. manhood. It comes in the nature Of
something like personal loss when Sherry gets
his. wish the Edingtons hadn't done that.
Detective Smith is admirable. OF the COM
mon nne-maybe better because Of that. Plot
good, personnel excellent, action not too unbe-
lievable-not for this astounding day. AL told,
q much above the average crime story.
GREEN BONDAGE. BY Frances Ogilvie. New
York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.
IN basic motive Screen Bondage" Is not I'M
J Ike Shirland GUMS Dark Heritage" story
Of Wales In Its grip upon the heart Of the