14 APRIL 1961, Page 28

The Arena. By William Haggard. (Cassell, 13s. 6d.) Pretentiously knowing

crime story, set in City, government offices and good addresses, which is both snobbish and silly : 'his stride was an inch or two longer than an infantryman of the line would have found comfortable. It was a gait which could tell the informed observer much: it could tell him that [he] had served in a regi- ment which had been difficult to get into and— surprising only fo the demagogue—rather stauncher in battle than the next.' Or, of course, it could have told the informed observer that the hero had a boil on his bottom.

CYRIL RAY