*LIGHT-FINGERED GENTRY*
Here is another novel of present-day life, and at present as true, as
interesting, from the romantic point of view, as either of the other
two. When it was appearing serially, one of the foremost men in America
became so excitedly interested that he asked, and as a special favor
got, an advance set of the proofs of the whole story. He couldn't wait
to find out what was going to happen about Neva Carlin and her divorced
husband, Horace Armstrong; about the handsome, rakish great artist,
Boris; about sensible Narcisse, the architect, and her nice weak
brother; and the pert, pretty heiress, Amy Fosdick. As in Mr.
Phillips's other novels, here we have again those startling, intimate
views of men and women. Much more interesting, much more amusing is this
sort of thing than the slush you so often take into your system with a
box of chocolates, to the detriment of your brain as well as of your
stomach. It may be said right here that if you are weak or without
ambition, or if you have no desire to be a clean, clean-cut, up-to-date,
attractive human being, "in the know," you had better not read Mr.
Phillips's novels. His pictures of people are too true to make people
of the running-to-seed sort comfortable. The story gives again a true,
unvarnished picture of the situation as it has and does exist among the
great and unprincipled financiers of this country. It tells in
straightforward, direct language of the sacrifice of friendships and
family ties for the advancement of moneyed interest and the pursuit of
power, while all through the story runs the influence of a woman toward
human and sane living and thinking.