25 JUNE 1927, Page 25

THE BLACK PAWN. By Bruce Norman. (Arrowsmith. 76. 6d. net.)---A

most excellent thriller in which secret societies and the politics of one of those little republics in the Balkans which are invented for the benefit of novelists arc admirably mingled. The book is written with a good deal of care and with a quiet humour which throws the swiftly moving episodes into pleasant relief.