Fenton, Jessie. Down the Dark Street. [New York:  Houghton Mifflin & Company. $2.50.]

Down the Dark Street is a carefully documented story of a young delinquent's road to crime. All the characters and situations are said to be fictitious, but one can imagine that they are compiled from an actual file of case records. The story is sympathetically, but unsentimentally told, and the author shows keen insight into the workings of a boy's mind toward delinquency: his alignment against established authority, his pride in excelling at crime, and his carefully cultivated contempt for goodness. We see Lonny, the hero, progress through adolescence into young manhood, his feeling for crime broadening and deepening as he progresses more irrevocably into its patterns. The characters are all richly colored and believable, and the plot is logical and enthralling. The writing seems sometimes technically the work of an amateur, that fact can easily be overlooked for the sake of an otherwise exciting experience. The book surges to a climax, then falls realistically to its suitable end. Whether or not it was written as propaganda, it has the effect of stirring the reader a wish that more young delinquents might be given understanding care, and that less opportunities for helping them might be missed.

It is a book of deep psychological understanding, and a powerful dramatic grasp. This book is well worth a few hours of the spare time, brief though it be, of any psychiatrist, lawyer or social worker.