HERE COMES A CANDLE

There is an eerie fascination about this story, in which the end is glimpsed from the beginning, without destroying the sense of suspense for the reader. The setting is a rundown Soho courtyard, with a third rate night club on one side, an Italian restaurant on the other, and rooms, occupied by ""all sorts and conditions of men"" and women. The story builds itself in Grand Hotel manner around the lives of these people, -- a cabinet maker whose life is a craft no longer needed, his disgruntled wife and children; a girl from the North Country who tries to find her fulfillment in London life, and her erratic flier lover; a dipsomaniac doctor with a past; two prostitutes; an old anarchist; a miser who lives off the garbage cans; a fanatical Negro preacher; the Italian family; the owner of the night club and his employees, and others. Over them all hovers the knowledge in the mind of the reader that somehow a fire is pending which will destroy some and save others -- and each character and each episode takes on the quality of an etching against this sombre foreknowledge.