Call the New World

THIS novel, by the author of Next to valour, takes place mainly in South America in the years between 1815 and 1823. Both historically and geographically it is well-informed and interesting. Peter Brooke volunteers as a soldier of fortune under Simon Bolivar in the wars of liberation in Venezuela, Chile, and Peru, and the account of his various campaigns is able, vivid, and rich in detail — too rich, perhaps; tor a smaller canvas and a lighter burden of fact might have made it run more freely. It staggers a little under its materials. Like all soldiers of fortune in fiction, Peter combines war with love. Of three affairs given at some length, the main one suggests the reflection that civilized heroines of romance are liable to be insipid; while that with Panchita, Peter’s ‘army wife’ whom he cannot marry, suggests that the less civilized such heroines are, the better for purposes of Action.

R. M. G.