1 MARCH 1957, Page 25

The Gallant Affair. By Hank Hobson. (Cassell, I Is. 6d.)

A new English crime-novelist gives Soho the Chicago treatment, let syntax and apostrophes fall where they will. On the very first page, the English private dick, who rejoices in the-not very cisatlantic first name of Brad, picks up the tele- phone, to find that 'the earpiece, stickily unclean, nuzzled my ear like the snout of a hungry hog.' No need to spell, if you can write like that.