NEWSPAPERMAN ADVENTURING

Evening Star, Issue 23693, 28 September 1940, Page 4

NEWSPAPERMAN ADVENTURING

In a'discussion with a friend, Angus Mac Vicar, who wrote ‘ Eleven For Danger,’ had the perfect “ s.hocker ” described as a story about “ ordinary people with ordinary virtues and failings; the central idea . . . unusual, with topical interest, yet within the bounds of possibility, the excitement leavened with humour and informative detail.” ‘ Eleven For Danger ’ follows this formula, and could hardly have failed to have been a success. A newspaperman on holiday—why is it that; in fiction at least, everything happens to reporters on holiday ?—runs into iv story which has international complication’s before it is unfolded. And “ Deathshead ” Smith, who knows all about moths, sees him through. The characters are natural, the storv very readable, but the plot is slightly forced, although it carries the suspense to the end. And in spite of the “ informative detail,” the tale never lags. Our copy is from Messrs Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd.; the publishers are Stanley Paul and Co. Ltd.

At the time of his death in 1935, the late Allen Deeper, head,of the Western Department at the Foreign Office, had nearly completed a book on the early history of that part of Central Europe known until 1938 as Austria. Deeper, an Australian, was a brilliant scholar as well as a distinguished Civil servant, and his book covers the history of Austria from the earliest times up to the end of the Brandenberg dynasty (1246) - Begun during the period which he spent as First Secretary at the British Legation in Vienna, and continued after his return to London, it is based orf personal research throughout. It has now been revised and prepared for press by Professor R. W. Seton-Watson and C. A. Macartney, and will shortly be published by the Oxford University Press.