Best of the Paperbacks

JT looks as though the people at Fontana Books, i.e. William Collins Ltd., have been working overtime lately as all our paperbacks this month are from that publishing house.

Thrillers

Death Of A Sardine And

Malice Matrimonial Are Two

from the sparkling pen of Joan Fleming. The first is set in Portugal.

The publishers warn potential readers that the story “cannot stand up to the usual examination of alibis and clues, since at the moment the murder was committed, the principal suspects were all blind drunk on Portuguese hooch”. (Both 6/-).

Suddenly At Singapore

And Dead Man Calling Are

both by Gavin Black, who seems to specialise in thrillers with Far Eastern settings. The first concerns Jeff Harris, who, with his brother Paul, fights Communism under the cloak of their rich trading company until Jeff collects a fatal bullet in Singapore. Paul immediately heads to that city from Kuala Lumpur and gets involved in international intrigue in trying to track down his brother’s killer. In DEAD MAN CALLING, Paul is in the thick of another murder or two in exotic Tokyo. (Both 4/-).

They Came To Baghdad, A

1951-vintage Agatha Christie set in the Middle East, is now in its fifth impression with Fontana. (6/-).

Death And The Dancing

FOOTMAN, by Ngaio Marsh, first came off the presses in 1942. It concerns, among others, Jonathan Royal, of Highfold Manor, Cloudy fold, Dorset, who, in one weekend, aims to reconcile a rejected lover both to his late love and to his successor; a business woman to her detested rival; a ruined beauty to an artist who made a gruesome effigy of her face; and a mother to a girl who had rejected her favourite son for his brother. (6/-), General:

How To Win At This And

THAT is a handbook for gamblers by Midas, of the London News of the World, who has been described as “one of the best mathematicians in the country”. With the aid of

diagrams and tables, Midas describes the mathematical possibilities of winning in football pools, on racing of various kinds, at cards, roulette, dice, dominoes, etc. (6/-).

HAROLD WILSON, by Leslie Smith, is described by the publishers as “the first authentic biography” of Britain’s new Prime Minister. The author, a former producer of the BBC’s Current Affairs Department, has known Wilson for 12 years. (6/-).

The Turn Of The Tide And

TRIUMPH IN THE WEST, by noted historian Arthur Bryant, are books on World War II based on the diaries and autobiographical notes of Field-Marshal Alanbrooke. The first covers the years 1939-43, the second 1943-46. When The Turn of the Tide was first published in 1957, Lord Attlee described it as “the most im portant publication on the Second World War that has appeared”. (Both 9/-).

Fiction:

The Crowthers Of Bank

DAM, by Thomas Armstrong, is one of those mammoth novels— -640 pages—which, before the days of TV, were beloved by women sub scribers at the circulating libraries.

The novel, which first appeared in

1940, tells of the rise of a Yorkshire mill-owning family in the years

1854-1921. Sue Crowther’S

MARRIAGE is a sequel in 574 pages. (Both 8/-).

DEAD AND ALIVE, a Hammond Innes novel set in Italy and its underworld around 1945, is an ex citing tale which will remind you— if you were of that generation— how it felt to be a young man after six years of war. (6/-).

The Dark Crusader, By

Alistair Mac Lean (otherwise lan Stuart) is now in its sixth impression as a Fontana book. It’s about a Secret Service agent’s search for eight scientists who disappear after taking highly-paid jobs as fuels ex perts in Australia. The trail leads to a remote Polynesian island peopled by odd-bod. archeologists and their Chinese henchmen. Also by Alistair Mac Lean is THE SATAN BUG, concerning scientists and skullduggery in Wiltshire. (Both 6/-).

Harry, The Rat With

WOMEN, by Jules Feiffer, is about an irresistible cad for whom women want to die. Then one does ... (6/-).