10 MARCH 1961, Page 29

, Night's Black Agent. By John Bingham. (Gol- t ,aticz, 13s.

6d.) Two neat little anecdotes of nlackmail and murder, linked together by the per- sonality of the blackmailer, set into a framework- story in which a journalist, helped by some out- rageous coincidences, brings the blackmailer- Murderer to a sort of rough (though not even roughly plausible) justice. Mr. Bingham writes a pleasing prose, and can create characters, but the plotting is hardly worthy of the materials: the novel is jerry-built, of good stuff.

CYRIL RAY