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BAROMETER RISING by Hugh MacLennan Kirkus Star

BAROMETER RISING

By

Pub Date: Oct. 2nd, 1941
Publisher: Duell, Sloan & Pearce

This is top pop reading, intelligent writing and characterization, a deftly interwoven background (Halifax, Nova Scotia, during the first World War), and a romantic story. Penelope Wain, daughter of a prominent old family, a successful ship designer at 29, masks her love for her cousin, Neil Macraw, under a cool exterior. Wain, his superior officers, shields his own military blunder, behind Macrae, and allows him to face court martial. A shell gets him -- Macrae returns to Halifax to secure the evidence of the only man living who can absolve him. And then the explosion, tidal wave and earthquake wreck the city. How the evidence is secured -- how he and Penelope and the child that had been the hidden result of a flare of passion get their chance to start life over again, is sympathetically handled. Good suspense, with all the basic elements for easy renting and selling.