SWISS TAKEOVER BATTLE

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33775, 22 February 1975, Page 10

SWISS TAKEOVER BATTLE

Harlequin. By Morris West. Collins. 285 pp. N.Z. price $5.70. Paul Desmond, the narrator of this story, is, in his own words “an antipodean, big, burly, eager, impulsive, apt to be harsh or simplistic in my judgments.” His closest friend for 20 years has been George Harlequin, president and chief shareholder of an old established merchant bankers firm in Geneva. Harlequin is everything Desmond is not, elegant, cool and subtle, so that Desmond often feels like “court jester to the most exquisite of princes.” “Harleqin” on one level is the story of the unlikely friendship between these two men and of the strains which it withstood. Both characters have individual appeal, but the theme of their friendship is treated with a distressing slickness which contrasts oddly with

the convincing emotions drawn so starkly in West’s earlier novels. On the more obvious level, "Harlequin” is simply a fast-moving round of intrigue in the world of big business. When Basil Yarko (clearly the villain with a name like that) head of a huge computer system attempts, by ungentlemanly methods, to take over Harlequin’s bank, battle is joined. Morris West misses out very little which is likely to be topically appealing. Both Arab and Jewish terrorist groups come into the fight; references to Watergate sprinkle the pages; and the F. 8.1. appears as a well-meaning but totally inept crime fighter. Like most of the author’s work, “Harlequin” is clearly bound for file best-seller lists and the screen. But what has happened to the writer of "The Devil’s Advocate” and “Children of the Sun”?