3 JANUARY 1920, Page 28

READABLE NOVELE.—Cathy Bowater. By Mrs. Victor Rickard. (Hodder and Stoughton.

7s. net.)—The heroine of Mrs. Victor Rickard's new novel is imprisoned in a private lunatic asylum through the plotting of an unscrupulous woman doctor who is in love with the heroine's husband. A very moving account is given of the horrors which she goes through.—The Seventh Vial. By Frederick Sleath. (Herbert Jenkins. 6s. net.)—A series of spirited sketches of life at the front from the point of view of a young pilot who gradually gathers experience.—Mary Olivier ; a Life. By May Sinclair. (Cassell. 7s. net.)—As the title indicates, this book gives the biography of the heroine from infancy (1865) to middle age (1910). The study of the principal character is interesting, it being an attempt at a close analysis of an ordinary commonplace person leading a quiet, everyday life.