First Sminnerton

First Swinnerton

THE MERRY HEART -Frank Swinnerton -Doubleday, Doran ($2.50). A "promising first novel" is distinctly more the vogue than "another book by. . . ." Frank Swinnerton, long-accepted writer of suave character studies, also wrote a First Novel, and it won him "immediate recognition as a young writer of distinction." Published now in this country, The Merry Heart is subtitled "A Gentle Melodrama," involving as it does the death of villain and the charming capers of a gay, cynical young hero. The complicated plot is only less fortuitous than that of Swinnerton's latest novel, A Brood of Ducklings -Hero Locritus tracks down the villain who has absconded with his sister Fanny, only to discover that the same villain has kept his, Locritus's, sweetheart Margaret out of her inheritance. At a single stroke Locritus thereupon restores Fanny to her rightful suitor, restores himself and the inheritance to Margaret, and they all live happily.