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THE RESCUE OF CAPTAIN LEGGATT by W. Townend

THE RESCUE OF CAPTAIN LEGGATT

By

Publisher: Morrow

This is a readable story that holds the interest from first page to last, but I can't quite see it as the important book the publishers claim. The long arm of coincidence almost breaks in the process of getting all the important people together at the psychological moment, even if that must be in mid-Atlantic. But a lot can be excused if the result is as interesting as this. Captain Leggatt is a middle-aged conservative, with his life controlled by love of the wife who died by a German mine in the last war, and by his hatred of the Germans and all they stand for. He has two daughters and a very attractive second wife, but his daughters don't quite fit the picture he has of them and he places the blame, not on his own intolerance, but on his wife's youth and inability to control her step-daughters. Everything comes to a head almost simultaneously, and he has to readjust his whole life pattern to the new requirements, even if that demands accepting the inadmissable, acknowledging that even Germans have their points, and realizing that he really loves the wife he had scorned. Bitter pills -- but the fact that he can take them shows his fundamental quality.