Tangling With Thunderbolt

Thunderbolt

In the aggregate, Australia has few bushrangers (English: Highwaymen; American: Outlaws) but her writers have certainly made the most of them. Frank O’Grady has carried on the tradition in his latest Australian historical novel “Wild Honey”, the bushranger, Captain Thunderbolt be ing the heroic villain of the piece.

The romantically named Thunder bolt was born Fred Ward, and at the time the story begins, was a convict committed to the then “maximum security” prison of Cockatoo Island, just off the mouth of the Parramatta River in Sydney Harbour.

It was imagined that because there were sharks in the Harbour, no one would attempt to escape from the island, but Frank Ward did, in the winter of 1863, with the help of a half-caste aboriginal girl whom he later married.

When he assumed the name Cap tain Thunderbolt he set up in busi ness as a bushranger in the Hunter Valley, the Peel River and country around Tamworth, NSW, It is the complications that the bushranger brought into the lives of Jock Miller, horse-breeder and station owner, his daughter Kileen, her several suitors and the Boydell neighbours that pro vide the material for this novel. (Wild Honey is currently being read, serial form, over the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s net work.) (WILD HONEY. Published by Angus and Robertson Ltd. 20/-.)

Three Thrillers

For Fans

Thriller readers can combine their suspense fiction with geography this month. The latest Simenon — “Mai gret Afraid” —has its usual French background; Eric Williams, in “The Borders of Barbarism” has his charac ters capering through Yugoslavia; and Donald Moore’s “Highway of Fear” is a fantastic concoction of thrills all the way from Singapore to London.

MAIGRET is the peculiarly French Paris detective who takes a de pressed and cynical view of life while he is solving crimes. In this number he is returning from an international police congress at Bordeaux and, having a week-end to spare, stops off at the small provincial town of Fontenay-le-Comte to see an old friend. He is immediately embroiled

murder case that is convulsing hole town and has deep social currents. Maigret works it all the weekend at his disposal. ★ other two thrillers have some in common —both concern doing long distance journeys nd-Rovers (maybe the Rover ,ny subsidises them); and the s are unashamedly Iron Cur rigands who stop at nothing, iams has written several well [ books on war and war escap- The Wooden Horse, etc.) but 'orders of Barbarism is fiction.

Edgar Starte and his wife Kate f from England on a gipsy r in Yugoslavia they are asked leighbour to pop into a cave in n Serbia and pick up some lollars and the dossiers of for ?hetnics. neighbour had been para in Yugoslavia in 1942, in the when the British Government upporting Mihailovic and his cs and before Tito and his ms had got into the act. thing led to another and be ;hey left England the Startes lot only promised to retrieve ipers in the cave (guarded by ad Germans), but had agreed a little spying job for British ?ence. ir troubles began once they had [ the recognised tourist beat in lavia and started to look for ve in the high-security area of n Serbia where only the ie forms the barrier between lavia and Hungary, y became embroiled with a ex-Chetnic and his team of ng hounds, a terrified ex-in ■ and, of course, the security With the undercover help of ish Embassy staff member, the active help of an American aperman and some last-minute nail, they finally manage to ite themselves in the last pages. ’hway of Fear is so fantastic as ridiculous —or it would be ridi , if it weren’t also eminently •le. The Perils of Pauline were ihioned, kindergarten stuff in rison with what befell Moore, ebank and Elena, all the way :n Singapore and London, tarted out as a mild adventure Yloore and Brocklebank agree -3 drive a Land-Rover from iore to England, but in Bang n a visit to a night club they ip Elena, the beautiful spy de ed to defect to the West com vith the Evidence packed away cro-film.

From this moment it’s on, and they tear away over 9,000 odd miles by road and by air, with nothing but the guns, clothes and the wits they stand up in. All the way through Thailand, into Burma and India, they mow down the minions of They, as they appear one after the other as connected pieces of an Iron Curtain hydra-headed monster.

They leave a trail of dead bodies, abandoned Land-Rovers and wrecked cars all across SE Asia, crash a DC4 at Kabul, are befriended by a maharajah in Quetta and are finally shot down in flames by one of Their jet fighters over France.

Throughout the piece there’s Brocklebank, a jet-propelled Bulldog Drummond who wears an Australian Digger’s hat, whose continuous con versation shows he had been ex posed to the Australian virus in other ways, and who early turns out to be one of Us.

The whole thing is completely ridiculous—and 100 per cent, en joyable. (MAIGRET AFRAID; Hamish Hamilton

Ltd., 15/6. The Borders Of

BARBARISM; Wm. Heinemann Ltd., 18/9.

HIGHWAY OF FEAR; Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., 18/9.)

It's Happening All

The Time

ARE teen-agers just junior-sized people? Or a new and distinct species of the human race? Millions of words have been written, and spoken, on this division of opinion since the end of the last war without getting any nearer an answer.

Neither is there a solution to the

conundrum in The Law Shop, a new novel by Leo Townsend, but it does give some new angles on life amongst what in the United Kingdom are re ferred to as Teddy-boys and their girl friends.

One of the contentions of writer Townsend is that the Beat generation has even less time for the advanced thinkers who blame delinquency on social and psychological mishap, than for the old fashioned law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

This is particularly so in the teen-age gangs of London’s asphalt jungles where Dave Brennan, 17 years old gang-leader, reigned supreme. Dave

s friends would rather have the punishment the law de and in fact demanded it— than be regarded as sick, not ible for their actions or brands plucked from the burning by led do-gooders. very adult love story of Dave na, the 15 years old refugee “respectable home” lifts the bove the usual level of stories -age crime and a strong sense our on the part of the writer it beyond the point where it legenerate into bathos, isend steers a nice course be condoning and condemning aves any conclusions to be to his readers. The teen-age i, so it appears, is with us —or just so long as we con have an over-affluent society, sr the philosophers might like ve on the subject, such a re ainst social practice as the o’s have staged in the last 15 :an only be sustained by shillings and pence.

LAW SHOP. Published by Wm. tin. Aust. price, 22/6.)

Reviews

ief

tse most writers seem to be away with the idea of pro a book for the Christmas >e were more than ordinarily d at the end of the year, re some books received dur- Christmas rush and now i briefly: [OIR OF SPRING, by Elick Yloll is the author of Seidman i, which we reviewed here in ack form. The present novel, ■, is in very different vein be retrospective account of a boy growing up in the tough tion of New York before ig success in Hollywood. It largely autobiographical, as a successful inhabitant of Hills as well as a novelist. hed by Heinemann. 18/9.)

House On Coliseum

F, by Shirley Ann Grau, who ies in mixed-up kids, although e does not qualify for the al adjective of “poor”. Joan th her mother and four step -each by a different father, i her mother was respectably each time. It is not a house at makes for happiness and if e not assured that what ails mixed-uppedness in the best rleans manner, we might have i that she was slightly feeble

minded. She becomes pregnant and her mother finds a nice hygienic solution although this causes Joan to brood. We might, in fact, say that broodiness is the keynote of this novel. (Published by Heinemann. 18/9.)

Tracks Of Destiny, By Lon

L. Idriess. Old writers never die, they just keep churning on, and this one continues to produce his book or two per year, no matter what.

This is an account of a journey he made in 1930 from Derby, WA, to Tennant’s Creek, NT. Idriess still has his following but even the writers of the blurb on his dust-jackets seem

to be running out of ideas on how to present him with a new twist. (Published by Angus & Robertson. 25/-.) BRIDGE TO GOD, by Brian Hession. He is an American clergy man who has written six books since he was told, in 1954, that he had an incurable cancer and not long to live. In this he sets out to convince readers that the only way to a fuller life is a belief in God. (Published by Peter Davies. 20/-.) BELOVED SON, by Cecil Maiden.

A novel based on the life of Christ when he was about 12 and culminat

the incident in which, accord the Gospel of St. Luke, his , after searching for him for ays, found him in the Temple with the learned men of the nity. ihed by Peter Davies. 18/9.) WAY TICKET, a collection ies by Norman Levine, some ch have appeared in inter [ publications. The author is idian but lives in Cornwall. y writes poems. His stories y much in the modern idiom, ihed by Peter Davies. 18/9.)

Son For Violence, By

Doubtfire. Pauletta was ed by some beetles when she : and thereafter they became on—a fixation on which her cousin, Gilbert capitalised, er he would have his wicked ith her he brought along a beetles—which if nothing else ivel method of seduction (or Finally Paulette does to what she did, at six, to the bed by Peter Davies. 20/-.)

N Without Pity, By

i Gregor. Another book rape, translated from the German. Four American tion Force soldiers rape a 3erman girl in a small town : crime, which shatters the f the place, then develops into between the man who defends :r accused and who is con lally opposed to capital lent; and the girl’s father who lly determined that the men ; executed. In their battle, herself becomes of secondary nee. bed by Heinemann. 20/-.)

.R Laden With Water

a Morduch. A volume of six through the Ages—from md Greece 500 years BC to ent day in England—all with ne thread running through sort of latter-day Magnif tsession. bed by Peter Davies. 20/-.)

I In His Darkness By

jreen. This is one of Heine- Blue Passport Series—trans from foreign writers. Green, •, was born of American in Paris and is completely il although he writes in This story’s background is ted States although as it con ncipally of soul writhings and

grapplings it might have taken place anywhere at all. (Published by Heinemann. 22/6.)

Fun in the

Atomic Age

SHE-WRITER Kathleen Sully gets favourite-child treatment from the erudite reviewers of the BBC and New Statesman but so far as we’re concerned, she’s strictly for the pixies.

Even so, A Man on the Roof, which concerns just an old ghost called Wilfred, is infinitely to be pre

ferred to the number that had the critics ecstatic a year or so ago, and which was called Shrine. (Skrine was one of the few individuals left in England after an atomic war and was far less endearing than Wilfred.) Wilfred became a ghost when Peony his widow, sold his collection of stamps for £325 which was, he considered, about one-tenth their true value.

In order to nag Peony about this he takes up residence with her and her aged girl-friend, and scandalises the neighbours.

To escape this unpleasantness,

Peony and her friend buy a c and decamp—but Wilfred go€ and subsequently sits on many all over the south west of Ei From this point on, he see take a decreasing interest in h stamps and an increasing inte: Peony, so that we are able, end, to report that there was a ending, with four enthusiastic cavorting around the world mauve-pink ghostly caravan.

It’s hard to account for r phenomena like Kathleen Sull> ticularly when such whimsie 15/- Stg. in cold cash. But p Mr. Khrushchev and his bombs sponsible for more than bad w

(A Man On The Roof. Publi

Peter Davies Ltd. 18/9.)

For Those Who

Like Dinosaurs

CHILDREN with a highly s ised interest in science—ai ticularly in biology—may get thing out of Before and After saurs, by Lois and Louis E Nonetheless, it is difficult to which age group it is directed some respects it is above the of many adults.

Louis Darling has written scientific animal books for you but this joint effort with Lois— we presume is Mrs. Darling dates those, at least in time, deals with the reptiles of pre from which we are all descend The book is attractively pn and the authors themselves vided the lavish amount of bla white illustrations which will long way to explaining to ig parents the terrifying differen tween a placodont and an ic saur. (There is also a hand; nouncing guide in the back.)

(Before And After Dino

Published by Angus and Rol 16/-.)

In the Steps

of B. Drummond

ONE of the more irritating gin of crime detection novels husband-and-wife team of sleui Gerard Fairlie, who along tl seems to have killed off E Drummond, an earlier crime now has his pet sleuth, John I running in double harness wi glamorous ex-secretary Moira

make either of them any credible, best thing about the sixth Macall stories, Please Kill My , is the piece of free travel re when the couple chase off to

mary Islands. Through this

t able to learn that the Group )t named after canary birds r the ancient Romans who it Canaria — cam's meaning a

r than that piece of general

Jge, the events leading up to scovery of who did away Irs. Street are based on so oincidence and the bending of tance to fit events that ex id whodunnit readers are ) become bored with the whole

Se Kill My Cousin. Hodder

hton Ltd. 20/-.)

s New in Paper Backs

IRA GREER, by Stephen Birming 7he story of a woman for whom >and was not enough. (Question: lusband ever enough?) As soon msband was safely off to Europe, made a pass at her brother-in lich shows a certain family less about the woman, anyhow.

H 4/-.) END TRAIL, by Norman Fox. rn about a reformed outlaw who 5 wasn’t all that reformed when to a cached fortune is put in his Fontana: 4/-.) PHE QUEEN REIGNS, by Dorothy First published by Hodder and n Ltd., in 1959, when we re it here. This isn’t women’s stuff but an authentic reference constitutional monarchy, British and how Queen Elizabeth II ier vast job. (Pan Major; 7/6.)

To Survive Matrimony, By

roy, the sequel to “How to Avoid iy”, by the same author, to be funny and the illustrations Francksen) help. (Great Pan; CALENDAR, by Edgar Wallace, cing was Wallace’s hobby; who riting his business. In this, one s.st of his thrillers, he combines and pleasure. (Wallace died in id 57; he had been brought up llingsgate fish porter, graduated ng a soldier in the Boer War correspondent and later became ritic and turf writer on London rs. He wrote over 100 novels •lays). (Great Pan; 4/-.)

Lowers Of Trebizond, By

.caulay. Sectarianism, religion, story, geography and the author’s id of eccentricity blended into a Some critics think it is the best i has written. (Fontana Library; ON THE TABLE, by Agatha Of the mid-1930 period of this t writer, when M. Poirot’s little s were in full working order, pie are playing bridge when their

host is murdered; any of the four could have done it—it’s left to Hercule to deduce who did. (Fontana; 4/-.)

The Joneses—How To Keep Up

WITH THEM, by Lee Gibb. Jones has a bigger car, a better house than you his maid-servant is a foreign artist; his tape-recorder has a gadget on it that can answer the telephone; he has a credit account and an expense account. How can you keep up with him? Gibb tells you how and is funny at the same time. Illustrations also funny —by Norman Mansbridge. (Great Pan; 4/-.)

A Prince For Inspector West By

John Creasy. As the title says, an Inspector West story, but this time gone

foreign—Milan, to be exact. There’s a Middle-Eastern Prince in it, an asp and a beautiful female in her underclothes. (Great Pan; 4/-.) THE YEAR OF THE LION, by Gerald Hanley. A novel of East Africa and all its inherent problems of black and white and black versus white. Published in 1953, before the Emergency in Kenya, and best read in that context for the very good novel that it is, without bothering too much about the political implications that have developed since. (Fontana; 4/-.) THE ORIGIN OF EVIL, by Ellery Queen. Dead dogs and murdered men, not to say pretty 19-year-old females, are

all mixed up with Queen’s arrival in Hollywood in this, the 25th mystery, from the master sleuth. (Great Pan; 4/-.)

The Reluctant Widow, By

Georgette Heyer. They had their troubles, too, in the days of the Napoleonic Wars, but the respectable Elinor Rochdale got more than she bargained for when she married an aristocratic drunkard and found herself a rich widow. (Pan Giant; 5/6.) ARTURO’S ISLAND, by Elsa Morante.

A translation of a modern Italian novel that is classical in execution, but a pleasure to read. It is the story of a boy’s growing from infancy to early man hood on one of the islands in the Bay of Naples, but under such extraordinary circumstances as to confound the peddlars of child-psychology. (Fontana Library; 5/6.)