Evening star., 1936-01-01
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
FAR ENOUGH. BY Eugene de Kalb.
New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co.
Margaret Cermond.


matte episodes in the history of modern
civilization land one that has been almost
entirely neglected by the writer's of fic-
ton. Perhaps America has been the
source of too rich a supply of inspira-
tion for pioneer and frontier stories TO
permit much thought of other lands.
The greater convenience and comfort
of travel to locations may also have added
considerably to the appeal of America.
A few broad-visioned authors have en-
tered foreign fields in the past few years
and produced powerful gripping novels
of broad human interest and of Signifl-
cant historic value.
Teda van der Veg is the protagonist
of this story of the Great Boer Trek into
the Transvaal, and it is through her life
that the heroic courage and indie
fatigable determination of an oppressed
people is unfolded in narrative that
has it's foundation in fact and its SYM
boliSm in the career of a woman who
might well have been any one OF the
hundreds who endured the hardshipS
and tragedies of tyranny and terror that
accompanied every foot of the long trek.
There is no attempt at dramatiZatlon.
A simple. straightforward style has been
employed, but with a directness that
makes every sentence bear weight.
Miss de Kalb is native American and
q graduate of Smith College. She
went to Cambridge and spent consider
able time in different parts of England
and Scotland collecting material for her
Cambridge doctorate. 1t was during these
months that she became acquainted with
many South African students, most Of
them South African Dutch. She became
interested in their talk during coffee
drinking hours and, in her own words,
soon "graSped the fact that there is a
story of people in South Africa that had
never been told in fiction"
Two weeks after Miss de Kalb knew
that her thesis had been accepted and
the cherished doctorate acquired she
was bound for Capetown, arriving q
month later q thousand miles upcountry
in the final home settlement of the trek
Boer. She learned their language, lived
among them on q purely social basis,
won their confidence and absorbed from
them every scrap of knowledge and of
tradition that the memories of the older
ones and the oft-told tales learned by
the younger ones could recall. In the
two years that she lived amid these
descendants of an heroic race she trav-
eled every accessible inch Of ground over
which the Great Trek had plodded.
Kindly and interested in her plan to
write a book, they told her about their
families, took her over the mountains TO
distant lonely spots where history had
been made and to the scene of the Staying
of Piet Retief, the greatest Of the trek
leaders. who had been tricked by the
Zulu chieftain and beaten to death with
seventy of his followers. And eventually
she found some one who would risk tax
ing her over the Drakensberge to the
famous road cut by the trekkerS down
through the treacherous terraces.
The thoroughness with which Miss de
Kalb has handled her subject places her
in the class with John Knittel, whose
work is invariably noteworthy for the
knowledge he has of his people and his
subjects. Perhaps the world has not
been consciously awaiting an adequate
novel of the Great Boer Trek. 1t is likely
that few. if any. have thought of the
Boer saga as material for fictional treat
ment. But now that it is here it will
undoubtedly win host of readers who
will warm -heartedly join its British crit
les in proclaiming it as "a book that
should live as long as the history of the
pioneer days of South Africa has place
in the annals of empire"
4 X
MURDER STALKS THE MAYOR. BY
r. T. M. Scott. New York, E. P.
Dutton g. Co.
Aurelius Smith, already a favorite
among the detectives of fiction. steps into
the political maelstrom OF New York
City to save its mayor from dishonor,
or death, or both. Smith is supposed
to be on the high seas. returning from
a long vacation abroad, when Bernice
arrives ahead of time from her own
vacation and decides to go to the Office
and make ready for the coming of her
employer. Things are not right in the
Fenton street house, which Smith oc-
cupieS as professional and living quar-
ters for himself and his lovable if odd
family. The family. by the way. for the
benefit of those not yet acquainted with
the adventures of AureliuS Smith, con-
siStS of himself, Bernice, his secretary;
Langa Doonh, Hindu manservant and
housekeeper; Jimmy, red-headed waif
Salvaged by Smith, and Lemon, Jimmy'S
dog.
Bernice finds a big desk chair over
turned, mail stacked in waste basket,
and other evidences of illegal occupancy.
When she opens her own desk she misses
death by a narrow margin as her own
pistol hitched to contraption, explodes.
Disturbing things happen at rapid
pace during the next few hours, but
she has worked for Smith too long not
to expect the worst at all times, so she
musters her forces for action, and soon
learns that Eer employer is not on the
high seas, as she believed, but already
in New York. and that she has walked
into trap set by him for an enemy
of society as well as of himself.
New York has elected a reform ticket,
and Mayor Craddington is known to be
fearless, honest and determined to clean
out the graft and bribery which has for
years corrupted public officials and
made of the metropolis a happy
hunting ground for criminals OF all
sorts. The political crowd does not
like Mayor Craddington and has set
it's machinery in motion to black
mail him out of Office, or, failing that,
to kill him. He employs Aurelius Smith,
but before that worthy investigator ar
rives at the mayors house the black
mailers have struck their first blow, aim
ing their attack through the mayors
wife.
Craddington Is for dropping the serv-
ices of Smith and surrendering to save
the reputation of his wife, but Smith
refuses to be dismissed and so the fight
begins against New York's underworld