WHAT BECAME OF ANNA BOLTON

This is a Bromfield in the class with Until the Day Break, definitely not top drawer. There's a bit of diluted Mrs. Parkington in the blend, as poor girl makes good -- but Annie Scanlon from the wrong side of the tracks had no motive other than greed and revenge, while Mrs. Parkington built steadily towards an ideal. Lewisburg had wrecked Annie's youth; Lewisburg must be shown. So when Annie's one love dies, she buries her youth with him, and eventually gains her end -- money and more money -- by marrying a rich old man, who leaves hr a fortune which she spends lavishly in the capitals of Europe, seeing and being seen, known as Anna Bolton. A gentlewoman who needs a job is her mentor and guide. They are in Paris when invasion catches them; they attempt flight, but the strafing of the road south strips Anna of the trappings of the unreal world in which she lives, and brings her back again to the Annie she had been. She sets up a canteen over the border of unoccupied France; she uses her contacts with the collaborators to get what she needs; she succors a baby left mother, and in her heart identifies his father with her own lost love; and finally -- when Pearl Harbor comes, she agrees to let him take her and the baby through the underground to safety -- and a chance to use the power her money gives her to help the cause. Eminently readable, of course -- Bromfield is always that -- but not really good Bromfield.