Volume 2, Number 2 · March 5, 1964
Couldn't Put It Down
By Robert M. Adams
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
by John Le Carré
Coward-McCann, 256 pp., $4.50
Von Ryan's Express
by David Westheimer
Doubleday, 327 pp., $4.95
Three Beds in Manhattan
by George Simenon
Doubleday, 190 pp., $3.95
Gad, sir, they don't write adventure stories these days like they used to; probably they never did. But everyone has his fond memories of thrillers—splendid specimens of sub-literature, where the good guys were systematically stacked up against the bad guys, where the decor was exotic not to say outré, and the plentiful girls just promiscuous enough to supply exotic last-minute rewards for the battered but miraculously rejuvenated hero. The ministry of terror—Boris, the sinister, cold-visaged killer, creeps catlike down the midnight corridors of the Orient Express toward the compartment where Emmie-Lou clutches the coded message to her palpitating high-ridged bosom! Roger, cool as a cucumber in the mountain hideout of the enemy, while sinister gorillas whimper with eagerness to tear him limb from limb, lights a cigarette, and says casually to aged, one-eyed Ivanov Dubrovnik: 'True enough, my dear fellow, you have me. But I won't do you much good, unless you have the mysterious brown parcel. And only I, as it happens, can lead you to it.' Talk about sang-froid!
Review, 1520 words
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