Fighting Narcotics

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31047, 30 April 1966, Page 4

Fighting Narcotics

Fruit Of The Poppy. By Robert Wilder. W. H. Allen. 267 pp. K A huge Chicago dope syndicate, the pushers and addicts of heroin, the smugglers constantly devising new ways of evading customs, the grim, unemotional devoted agents—all these are the usual elements of a novel on the drug traffic in the United States and on the work of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Mr Wilder claims that In this novel he has “avoided the mock heroics” but in spite of this claim one can find much that is melodramatic in the book. The character of Dano Villanova, head of the syndicate is quite unbelievable. One cannot imagine how even in Chicago’s underworld such a stupid man could rise to such a position. The kidnapping and forced addiction of Stacey Woodvard (who inci-

dentally changes almost overnight from Dano’s mistress to a nice girl fit for one of the bureau’s agents to date) is an example of some of the unnecessary violence which occurs in the book. The author does manage to give some idea of the work done by some of the agents and their counterparts in Mexico and of the tremendous forces they are fighting. The characters of the agents however, are a little too strong, silent and self-sacrificing, and there is little reference to the days of routine office work which must surely fill a large proportion of the bureau’s time. This is a Book Society choice. It possibly will do some good in drawing attention to the ever-growing drug traffic in Mexico and the United States and in paying tribute to the men who fight it. There are few other reasons why the Book Society should have chosen it.