22 FEBRUARY 1957, page 32

In All Directions

Adventure with Two Passports. By W. Byford- Jones. (Robert Hale, 21s.) Return to the Irrawaddy. By F. Kingdon-Ward. (Melrose, 25s.) South from the Red Sea. By Haroun Tazieff.......

Something Fresh

The Comforters. By Muriel Spark. (Macmillan, 13s. 6d.) THIS is a complicated, subtle and, to me at least, an intensely interesting first novel. I do not think that it is totally......