14 JUNE 1957, Page 25

The Barbarous Coast. By John Ross Mac- donald. (Cassell, 1

Is. 6d.) Mr. Macdonald makes the same sort of clean-cut dive as Raymond Chandler used to into the rich but murky Californian underworld, where a millionaire can buy a murder as easily as an imported convertible, and where the floors of private swimming-pools (one learns) are swept by underwater vacuum cleaners. Brilliantly efficient and with a sardonic eye cocked (again like Mr. Chandler) at social significance.