7 AUGUST 1926, Page 24

CRUEL FELLOWSHIP. By Cyril Hume. (Cape. 7s. Od. net.)—Here is

a poignant and thoughtful tale for the more serious reader. It gives in deftly oblique manner, through the lips of an onlooker, the life story of a human failure. Claude Fisher, the subject of the book, was one of those unfor- tunate men of potentially fine fibre who become coarsened and at last vile through some mysterious inability to adapt themselves to others and to life. His psychology and his actions are most lucidly revealed by the author in a story which is uncomfortably real and searching. It is one of the ablest novels of the season.