24 NOVEMBER 1923, Page 26

The ends of the lives of selfish and self-centred people

are so unpleasant that Mr. Maxwell discounts the interest of his readers by beginning his novel with an account of the senility of his two principal characters. It may, however, be doubted whether even without this the story of Wilfred Heber and Carrington Bird was worth telling. It is, no doubt, a photo- graphic account of the lives of two undistinguished people as to whom the only interest is that they are human 'beings. The account of their adventures in the trenches in France does not ring entirely true, and, as a whole, the book is not as successful as most of the works of this author.