13 DECEMBER 1957, Page 29

It's a Crime

Underdog. By W. R. Burnett. (Macdonald, 10s. 6d.) The cartographer of the asphalt jungle maps out another of the big-city landscapes in which ward bosses with luscious wives run politi- cal caucuses, play for big money in illegal gambling parlours, and frame little men between puffs of their cigars. Nobody writes this kind of thing better, and it's still a pretty exciting kind of thing.