3 OCTOBER 1992, page 31

Masterly, If Not Quite Tolstoy

John Jolliffe HATRED AND CONTEMPT by Peter Rawlinson Chapmans, f14.99, pp. 277 his splendid political and historical thriller, by a former Attorney General, is the story of Lord......

The Paradoxes Of Fate

Fate is the choosing without the knowing That the choice is proving you to be What you already are. Fate is deciding without the thinking That this deciding will prove you to be......

Too Much Goes Into A Best Cellar

Francis King DAUGHTERS OF THE HOUSE by Michele Roberts Virago, £14.99, pp. 172 T he past is a palimpsest: so many con- flicting memories and imaginations have scrawled their......