FRENCHMAN'S CREEK

Better late than never — sorry! How she can spin a yarn, can Daphne du Maurier! This is one of a piece with Jamaica Inn, rather than with the more subtle psychology of Rebecca. A roistering cloak and sword romance, in the best tradition, and in modern language and manner, derring-do stream-lined and twentieth century fashioned, — the story of a lovely lady who fled across from London to Cornwall, to escape the life and the self she was bored with. She rediscovered her true self in romance and adventure through the glamorous French pirate who terrified and tantalized her stolid Cornish gentry neighbors. Mad adventure, not always convincing as to details (or, in retrospect, as to pattern), but excellent escape reading in days when sheer story telling provides a way out as relief from daily headlines.