NEW FICTION

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32880, 1 April 1972, Page 10

NEW FICTION

The Value of Nothing. By John Weitz. W. H. Allen. 320 pp. "Creative? He was not creative. He could sense, he could feel, he could adapt, but he could not invent. He had drifted into fashion because it was convenient and glamorous, and he had learned well. But it had happened without plan and without urgency. Something had driven him, but what? Not creative talent, not burning ambition.” John Weitz is a fashion designer, and he sets his novel in the fashion world. The ingredients and treatment are strangely like a Hollywood actress’s novel about Hollywood. There are the same self-orientated characters, and the same unusual preponderance of sexual deviations. The hero is an unlikable young man with few ordinary human feelings (for instance, for his parents or colleagues); the novelist presents an intentionally cold-blooded picture. The trouble is that the reader may not become involved enough in it not to give it the cold shoulder. The best parts of the book are those where we have no doubt of the authenticity of the observation—in the cutting—or drawing-rooms of fashion houses. Here, the urgency and creativity and competition, and the conflict of designers with the social world of money that buys the creations, are well conveyed. But the emptiness of Philip’s personal life, and the emptiness of the goals he strives for, are points self-evident long before the novel’s end. Hot Wireless Sets, Aspirin Tablets, the Sandpaper sides of Used Matchboxes, and something that might have been Castor Oil. By D. G. Compton. Michael Joseph. It is unquestionably an intriguing title which makes one eager to know just what it means. There may be a slight feeling of disappointment when one discovers it simply describes a peculiar smell which lingers on after an extraordinary event has occurred. To most readers, however, this will be the only disappointment in an original and entertaining novel. This reviewer , is constantly amazed at the inventiveness of science fiction writers and Mr Compton combines this inventiveness with a calm matter-of-fact reporting style which gives a solid air of credibility to the story. The novel has no pretensions to be anything more than entertainment but as such it succeeds admirably. It is well written and extremely well constructed. The author begins and ends it in the present, employing a flash-forward technique for the main central part of the work. He bases the story of the future on an unusual book which has been projected back in time and the understated horrors pictured are all the more chilling because one can see the trends towards them in our present society. The title admittedly is a gimmick but the book really needs no such tricks to recommend it. It is a modest but thoroughly competent piece of work with character, plot and technique all uniting to maintain suspense and keep the reader fascinated. Mr Compton has published several previous novels and one hopes for more of the same workmanlike quality. Vulture In The Sun. By John Bingham. Gollanaz. 191 pp. This story of international espionage is centred in Cyprus where GreekCypriot and Turkish-Cypriot not to mention Israeli, Russian, and American fingers all stir up the mud in an unfragrant pool. They all agree that they could do without the British; and when Tom Carter arrives to relieve a man named Baker, the British agent there, he finds plenty of trouble. There seems to be concerted action to remove all who might be useful to the British cause. As in ancient Greek tragedies, most of the rough stuff happens offstage, but Baker’s aeroplane is destroyed by a bomb; a Greek boy assisting him, and an elderly man who sends radio signals for him are both killed, and various trouble-shooters disintegrate when their cars are blown up by plastic bombs. All this proves most unsettling for Carter and he expects to be the next victim at any moment Undaunted, however, he sallies on, seeking whomsoever is responsible for all this mayhem. He has little success, and when he seems to have something sewn up nicely, it all comes to pieces again.

Most of the protagonists remain rather dull people to a reader, and inspire neither affection nor terror. Mr Bingham writes forcefully enough; but carelessness, particularly using only a comma where at least a semi-colon is needed, becomes annoying. The Chill Factor. By Richard Falkirk. Michael Joseph/Arlington Books. 224 pp. Mr Falkirk’s spy story has the slick expertise of a le Carre thriller, brisk and action-packed with a plot that intrigues without baffling. There is the requisite “femme fatale,” an abundance of fast cars, frame-ups, stolen documents and bar-side assignations, with frequent crucial encounters between phlegmatic Englishmen and sadistic Russians. What sets the book apart is the ironic detachment of the telling, which is unobtrusively first-person sprinkled with friendly asides. The story is set in Reykjavik and could be called "A Small Town In Iceland." It begins mildly enough with William Conran, the book's narrator and a British ageint, flying into Iceland to investigate a possible Russian spy ring. His cover is that of a vulcanologist and his declared goal the smoking Mt Hekla. On the plane he is plied with vodka and smiles by the blonde Icelandic air-hostess Gudrun and before the book ends they are much more than just good friends, with Gudrun involved in some anti-Icelandic activities. Conran is assisted in his investigations by the good-natured liaison officer at the American-manned N.A.T.O. base, Charlie Martz, and by the devious back-slapping Einar Sigurdson head of the Reykjavik police. The baddies declare themselves and the pace quickens towards the middle of the book, when Conran is attacked while searching an apparently-deserted holiday house of one of the suspects, an ornithologist called Emil Hafstein. Descriptions of the local scene show evidence of careful research, and nowhere more so than in the details of the steamy hot - springs area, surrounding Hafstein’s house and of the quiet rooms inside. Before the final denouement and the violent end of one of the main characters in a boiling mud-pool, Conran finds himself rock-climbing among nesting puffins, standing two feet from a moving lava wall on Heula, and chasing his quarry around inside a church that is tilting and heaving above an area of thermal activity. “The Chill Factor” is light entertainment of a high standard.