FIRES IN MAY

We found this a distinct advance over Cat Across the Path, which won a good deal of cudes last year. The story of a German refugee in England, a girl, well born, gently reared, cultured, and illy equipped to meet adversity, and of her problems when faced with the legal and labor restrictions, virtual ignorance of the language, and little understanding of the English code of conventional morals. Loneliness drives her into an affair which has its sordid outcome -- and the results in an ever widening circle, touch her fate even after success has come to her. Cross out of London society, from the slums and back streets to the homes of the rich and gifted. The girl can write. Her characters live. If she tends towards melodrama at times, one can forgive her. A better integrated -- though possibly less original for is that only because it is not a ""discovery"" this time?) -- than the first novel. Publishers have postcards for imprinting for the trade.