Strange Paths

(from inner flap, Mcacaulay dustjacket)

When John Lincoln, second son of Lord Dunwarden, set out to recover the emeralds his mother had buried in Russia, he knew he was risking murder at the hands of his brother, Count Nicholas Griezkoff, as well as terrible punishment by an alert government whose very existence depended upon immediate apprehension of its enemies. For the emeralds were now the property of the Soviets, which were so far unaware of their existence. It was up to Vava, as John was known to his intimates and to his readers, to keep the Soviets in ignorance while he worked under the very nose of government officials -- with Nicky and his henchman dogging his heels -- to recover the jewels and get them out of the country. Lord Dunwarden needed them to repay the stockholders of a defunct company. Vava was an adventurer forced to prove his mettle many times over in all seriousness.

This is an absorbing narrative of fast thinking and fast actions. There are tense moments on a round-the-world cruise, when two of Neptune's Poliecement become bloodthirsty, and a Miss Nancy Clifford is surprised. The color green plays an important part in some amateur sleuthing, and Nicky can't stop wondering where he has seen that quaint Phyllis Martin before. Tantalizing suspense and unexpected thrills are laid against a background of tourist routine in a story in which the course of a man's life is altered by a mole on his ankle, and erratic circumstances converge in one of the strangest of courtships.

There are a lot of Louise Gerard novels I can't bring myself to touch with a ten-foot-pole -- think Jungle Love, The Golden Centipede, etc. -- but when you find one with less objectionable themes/settings, her stories have a kind of bonkers appeal. She's by no means a great writer, but she crafts characters and pairings that are unusual in light genre writing, even today. The male MC in Strange Paths is plain, "pale, with smooth, drab hair" slight, and significantly smaller than the heroine, and he spends most of the book very convincingly disguised as a girl. The female, MC, by contrast, is described as tall, robust, well-built -- "plump and rosy", "big". And, yet, for her, it is instant love ("Nancy hardly noticed his disheveled condition, for with him came the feeling that she had been waiting for him all her life." and later, unspoken, "You queer little object! I fell for you on sight.") She respects him for his courage and quick thinking, is concerned about his apparent physical frailty, and feels a strong desire to protect him. She does not find his disguise unmanning, and romantic tension radiates between them, even as he's befrilled and ruffled and doing an expert job darning his stockings. I've read the argument (maybe in Dixon's book on Mills & Boon?) that this kind of portrayal of men as particularly boyish was a reaction to the Great War, which left a generation of young women remembering their lost loved ones, unchanging and unaged. I don't know if I buy this given that, in my reading, at least, it's never a common theme and it doesn't seem to take off especially in the '20s. I'd more bet that writers like Gerard had been readers of Barclay (The Rosary, Through the Postern Gate, etc.) and went from there. :D In any case...

Also of interest is the backdrop: a guided tour through 30's Russia. My guess is that Gerard had taken one, herself. She has strong opinions and mentions more than once, the disillusionment of seeing an intellectually appealing theory play out so poorly.

In sum: come for the characters and setting, but don't expect to be wowed by style or plot. Also, first place in Least Accurate Dustjacket. Flags: In a couple throwaway comments, some minor (and, being Gerard, rather odd) ethnic insensitivity.