Some recent novels

Ie File On Devlin, By

Catherine Gaskin.

The young Australian Catherine iskin who made good with her first stseller, Sara Dane, an historical vel of Australia’s early convict ys, has not allowed her novels to :ome stereotyped. She has joined 5 exclusive international set of iters who are in perpetual world culation so far as the background their novels is concerned.

Miss Gaskin lived for a long time the United Kingdom before marry ; an American and crossing the lantic.

Her new novel begins in London i ends in a mysterious chateau in itzerland. It concerns the disap irance of Laurence Devlin, a •bel Peace Prize winner, last seen a plane that had disappeared in ghanistan near the Russian border; i Josh Canfield who appears to be lard-working journalist but is really mected with British Military Intel ;nce.

Fhis business of Secret Service :nts is new for Catherine Gaskin : it’s fashionable and she handles with expertise. (Published by llins. 28/-).

Ie Wayward Gang, By Wal

iVatkins.

Fhis gang, mostly Australians, is de up of railway fettlers and their res who live out a boozing, twling, sex-ridden life marooned the middle of the continent. If stretch of the Trans-continental Iway out on the Nullabor seems odd place for any of these activi i you soon learn differently. The sonnel consist of unskilled misfits 1 drifters with women to match, e accent is on realism and it is idled with considerable compe ce. Not for the squeamish who ik Australia is all soft, cuddly da bears. (Published by Rigby.

DIES IN THE DARK, by Margot Seville. rhis writer is one of the few Aus lians producing thrillers for the irnational market. She lives near Iney and most of her whodunnits e a Sydney background. Her new ry takes place around a household dominated or domineering women I the mystery concerns the identity a young man found murdered in bedroom of one of them. (Pub ied by Geoffrey files. 22/-).

The Slow Natives, By Thea

Astley.

The title comes from a quotation labelled Juvenilia. Q: —“What is the black stuff between elephants’ toes?”

A: “Slow natives!”

For the purpose of her thesis, Iris and Bernard Leverson are the slow natives who almost become the black stuff between the elephant’s toes.

They are suburban Brisbaneites whose marriage has drifted into middle-aged doldrums from which they are shaken by the incipient delinquency of their 14-year old son, Keith. The background of the novel is Brisbane and the make-believe land of Surfers’ Paradise. The theme is well worked out but this writer has a style that may be considered artistic by some, but which will aggravate others with its clouds of obscuring words. (Published by Angus and Robertson. 25/-).

The Strode Venturer, By

Hammond Innes.

For slightly off-beat adventures tempered by visionary dreams, Ham mond Innes seems likely to take the place of the late Nevil Shute. The

present novel is based largely on the people of the southern Maidive Islands, a chain of atolls that stretches from Ceylon 500 miles south into the Indian Ocean, and on the south ernmost of which the Royal Air force has a staging airfield.

The islands and the RAF station are fact. From it the author has woven a story in which the main ingredients are the national aspira tions of the island people; the dis covery of a new island, heaved out of the sea by volcanic action, and mineral-rich; and the effect London boardroom policies and politics can have on innocent people and events on the other side of the world. The two main characters are Commander Bailey, who tells the story, and Peter Strode, eccentric odd-man-out in a family of shipowners, who espouses the cause of the islanders. With the inevitability of stars in fixed courses all these elements meet in collision to supply the usual larger-than-life climax of the Innes novel. (Published by Collins. 28/-).