AustLit

'In The Radium Terrors the villain exposes wealthy individuals to radium so that they will have to pay extortionate priced to be cured of radiation poisoning. There is a private detective, Gifford Renwick, who chases around trying to put an end to all of this, but who is repeatedly side-tracked by his chivalrous ministrations to three women involved in the case. Dorrington locates the center for all of the mischief in the novel in Dr. Teroni Tsarka whom he identifies as a master criminal.'

Source: Panek, LeRoy Lad. After Sherlock Holmes: The Evolution of British and American Detective Stories. North Carolina: McFarland, 2014.

'It describes the adventures of an ex-Post Office employee, and his satellite, who sells romantic literature to nursegirls. The pair of them are snobs to the backbone, and set forth on a mission to regenerate the world by bringing it back to a belief in such things as inherited position and Inherited authority, and the utter worthlessness of the masses. Naturally these pseudo-Don Quixotes find the masses unwilling to accept their teaching, and their experiences are at first amusing enough. However, before long we begin to feel that the author is making a little go a long way, and there is hardly sufficient in the subject to justify the length of the book.'

Source:

'Recent Fiction', Sydney Morning Herald, 25 May 1912, p.4.

Described by the Spectator's book reviewer as 'The story of an enterprising female burglar who commits an almost incredible error of judgment.'

'Major Sarning (an extremely seedy gentleman who chums in a very seedy London lodging-house with an almost equally seedy writer and actor) is walking home in the fog one night when he stumbles upon a derelict girl. His pity is aroused, then his interest, and, very much against the derelict's wish, he furnishes her with first aid in the shape of much-needed food and shelter, while he passes the night supperless on the landing. Despite his own slender means he decides, in confederation with his two doubting friends, and with the consent (for a consideration) of his even more doubting land-lady, to afford the girl more permanent shelter and succour. Betty's story has been a very sad one, and it is difficult to break down her callous disregard for respectability ; but the generous attitude of her protectors does at last break it down, and the gentle and disinterested consideration of two of them wins her to even higher levels than of merely negative virtue. In her effort to be good Betty meets many obstacles, but the beautiful charity and selflessness of the down-at-heels Major helps her at every turn.'

Source:

'The Bookworm's Corner', Freeman's Journal, 19 May 1910, p.32.

'"The New Andromeda," by Carlton Dawe, is something of a comedy and more of a tragedy. The story opens with the breakdown of a motor-car. While assistance is being sought by the driver, the owner finds the new Andromeda bound to a sapling. Carey Vermont frees her, and she dresses herself grotesquely in one of his suits. She will not reveal who she is or how she came to be in her unthinkable situation. They call one another Perseus and Andromeda (the author evidently thinking it somewhat humorous to refer to the genuine Perseus as a 'Greek bounder.') They become chums on strictly platonic lines, and have nothing in particular to do but run about the country in the motor. Then things get not so platonic, and "the touch of her burning palm thrilled him strangely, and to save himself from further confusion he turned hastily away, and, without speaking, opened the door. She passed out, a strange smile on her lips, but a stranger light in her eyes."

'While they are living in their fools' paradise, a man whom Vermont knows turns up. It is the inevitable husband, who is mad, and things get eminently dramatic. Andromeda runs away, and the furious husband is at length got rid of, but remains on the watch with the cunning of a maniac. He discovers her whereabouts, and, in the absence of Vermont, gains admission to her. Then the agony is piled on, and there is a long interview between the two, in which she employs every artifice to put him from his purpose.

Finally, "with the point of his boot he turned the lifeless figure on its back.

"'It was a pity,' he muttered. 'She had a most superb throat.'"

"The story is, in spite of a certain degree of humour, an unpleasant one, though showing signs of undoubted ability.'

Source:

'The New Andromeda', Western Mail, 27 March 1909, p.50.

'The story concerns a young English diplomat in London, who, through the treachery of a friend, finds himself mixed up with a band of anarchists, who select him for the work of assassinating a Russian prince while the latter is on a visit to England. The head of the anarchists is a very beautiful Russian woman of noble family, to whom the young Englishman's father, while British ambassador in St. Petersburg, had done a grievous wrong. In the end, when there seems to be absolutely no escape for the unfortunate youth from murder at the hands of the ruffians whose wish he has declined to carry out, the revengeful desires of the woman are overcome by her love for the man she had marked as her victim, and together they outwit his enemies.'

Source:*

'Recent Fiction', Sydney Mail, 10 March 1909, p.20.

A Ruritanian romance, following the Grand Duchess Ima of Stressen and Englishman Jeffrey Clangate, who rescues her from a succession of difficulties.