THE DARK ISLAND

By Charles Collins and Gene Markey,' 18. New York. Doubleday, Doran. 1928.

The South Seas, a sunken ship, treasure, rival treasure-hunters, a girl, a sailor with a scarred cheek, a grim black-bearded captain named Rouse, a psalm-singing praying captain named Ransome, a fight in diving-suits on the ocean floor, a breathless flight and pursuit through shark-infested water, a mutiny, head-hunters, a castaway, an Antinea, or She among native queens, treasure again, excape—out of these things Charles Collins and Gene Markey make a story that rattles with action and clangs with derring-do. It is a story for those moments when you wear the pith helmet and dungarees of your dreams, when you let yourself be utterly what you know that you have always been at heartthe bronzed, lean explorer type, hawk-eyed, a little gray at the temples, but very handsome none-the-less, sipping stupendous ginand-limes on ghostly Kanaka beaches and prying into every nook and corner of the blazing archipelago named—shall it be Cock- aigne? Whatever its name, it is the place where men of splendid hearts should go rather oftener than they do and stay longer than they usually contrive to let themselves. The Darlc Island offers you an opportunity to make up for your own remissness in the matter.

The Dark Island is formed out of lavish ingredients and shaped by deft hands. Its authors know how to do things with mystery and suspense; its characters are full-blooded people who move swiftly and directly to purposeful ends; in a word, the book is admirably planned, pointed, and outfitted for adventure. If, now and then, you would like to see some of the characters at greater depth and leisure—the engaging Lobb, for instance, and the (literally) engaging Bokuyoba,—remember that the characters have rugged work to do. Their task is not to make parade of their insides for your edification; it is rather to perform deeds, and the best performers of deeds in the archipelago of Cockaigne are little given to depth or leisure.

Movement, life, interest, The Dark Island, has all of these. It is pleasant to know that such seamy scoundrels and such valorous high hearts still come to grips among the coral reefs and the sun-drenched, booming beaches.