13 FEBRUARY 1959, Page 30

Dragoman Pass. By Eric Williams. (Cdlins , 15s.) The author drove

into Hungary and Bul• garia a couple of years ago, and didn't like the people much or the regimes at all. No reason, whY he should, but his fictionalised account (in which he smuggles out a fellow-traveller who has given up fellow-travelling) suffers from the note of sustained peevishness; it is too cross to be a good travel book and too sloppily put together to be thrilling as a thriller.