22 NOVEMBER 1957, Page 62

The Mythmaker. By Sarah Gainham. (Barker, 12s. 6d.) A plausible

political killing in the rococo hugger-mugger of immediately postwar Vienna, a place and a period that this admirable writer knows inside out, and writes about with feeling. Ingenious, stylish, amusingly informative about the great families of the gone-but-not- forgotten Empire, and well plotted, except for the all too common fault of too much concentrated explanation at the end.