20 FEBRUARY 1959, Page 27

A Door Ajar. By Peter de Polnay. (Robert Hale, I5s.)

The young de Polnay won and lost a fortune in five months on the Riviera of the 1930s, when 'it was then like a beautiful lady: nowadays it is a travel agent surrounded by a caravan site.' Evocative of that now transmogrified place, and of that forgotten age when the King of Sweden was playing in the mixed doubles, and with a remarkable chapter on the splendours and miseries of the gaming table.