WORLD'S END

A book which should appeal to the market of the Caldwell, The Eagles Gather — but which is a bit more penetrating and perceptive than that novel. Sinclair has gone back to his former metier; he has taken the world armament industry as a dummy to shoot at, and has made his central figure an American "merchant of death" who is cynical in his view of the world, and through whom you see the industry playing up to society, to governments, to adversaries, and employing a perverted sense of what is and what is not honorable. He is grooming his eldest son, born out of wedlock to a mistress of his youth in Europe, to inherit his mantle, and the psychological study of the lad, a sensitive artist at heart, is exceedingly well done. There is something of Europa in the pattern, the period precedes and overlaps the first world war. On the whole, the book is essentially readable, though in retrospect somewhat artificial.