14 FEBRUARY 1958, Page 22

Trouble in West Two. By Kevin Fitzgerald. (Heinemann, 13s. 6d.)

Secret-service plot too bloodshot for verisimilitude, but background of off-colour clubs and knocking-shops just north of the Park too appealingly squalid not to be true. But Mr. Fitzgerald ought to be consistent in his knowingness: a hero from MI5 who can tell an Etonian from a Wykehamist by extent to which words are 'clipped' (p. 100) ought to know that there is an enormously easier way to learn name and address from telephone number than the tedious rigmarole that takes up pages 155 to 157.

CHRISTOPHER PYM