24 JULY 1959, Page 30

The House of Silence. By H. Wood Jarvis. (Muller, 15s.)

A clean-limbed Englishman among sinister 'Orientals' (by which the author means Levantines); and an English gentlewoman with candid blue eyes in the harem of an Egyptian husband whose caresses have become repugnant. Setting is Cairo of the '20s, and the idiom too is of the time: 'Olga,' he said hoarsely, 'You must withhold your love no longer . .