25 JANUARY 1957, Page 23

Dust and the Curious Boy. By Peter Graaf. (Michael Joseph,

12s. 6d.) Here, on the other hand, the contrast is deliberate, and well done, between the brash American private dick and the home-brewed British bobby, in a search after a missing child (and a murderer) through a well- drawn London scene: fast, exciting and fairly credible.