Left in the Lurch

Originally this was the title of the 1912 publication in the series of Annuals by Nat Gould, and consisted mainly if not entirely of this one story.

It was reprinted and issued as a separate novel in 1915, and reprinted again in 1920 and 1956.

This tale would seem to have nothing in its favour. Set in an English midlands county, it has the stock Nat Gould characters - a languid hero, an ever-forgiving invalid mother, an ideal girl friend, her rich adoring guardian, a villainous gambler and his sister, a sinister maid, a rascally innkeeper's son, a crooked bookmaker, an honest trainer. Neither a full length novel nor a short story, it holds no surprises. The happy ending is obvious from the beginning.

And yet - and yet - you simply have to keep turning the pages! You can't put the book down. You have to know how it all ends.

The hero pulls triumph out of disaster. And so does Nat Gould, working once again his inexplicable sporting magic! (TA)