THE BRICK FOXHOLE

A bitter, introspective book of private hells and damnations, underscored and intensified by the war, as the frustrations of soldiers who never see action and whose abnormal barracks life results in perverted violence, are embodied in Corporal Jeff Mitchell's strange path that leads to suspicion of murder. Jeff believed his wife was unfaithful, and defiantly drinks and debauches and ends in a pervert's house. The murder of the pervert sends Jeff into hiding. Keeley, his pal, recognizing Jeff's breaking point, sends for Jeff's wife, Mary, who arrives and turns to the prostitute who had befriended him for help. Keeley, knowing who had done the killing, goes to the man, kills him and is himself killed, and Mary, with Jeff exonerated, realizes to what he owes his emotional tangles and how she can help free him....Scarehead for libraries. An intense, sustained job of analysis.