18 JANUARY 1997, page 30

So Great A Cloud Of Witnesses

Caroline Moorehead SECRETS OF LIFE AND DEATH: WOMEN AND THE MAFIA by Renate Siebert Verso, £45, £14, pp. 333 I could leave and find the smallest hole in the world and stay in it......

Getting Ideas Above His Station

Paul Barker NO DISCOURAGEMENT: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by A. H. Halsey Macmillan Press, £40, £15.99, p.263 T his is the story of a railway child, who eventually got society to play......