2 SEPTEMBER 1960, Page 23

A Hum e- By John Williams. (Heinemann, 21s.) rt , slick account,

cut to a familiar pattern, of the man who murdered Stanley Setty, cut up his body, threw it out of an aeroplane and was convicted only as an accessory, and who now does life in a Swiss gaol for shooting down a witness to his robbery of a bank. There is little the here of substance—or of style—than in 'Be confession Hume sold to a Sunday news- f.aper• and no answer to the author's glib ques- os about the effect on Hume's personality of Illegitimacy and an unhappy childhood.