7 SEPTEMBER 1996, page 32

From The Enjoyable To The Inane

Tom Hiney THE OXFORD BOOK OF AMERICAN DETECTIVE STORIES edited by Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert OUP, £17.50, pp. 692 W hen television hijacked the market for American......

Still Sitting Down And Weeping

D. J. Taylor THE CONVERSATIONS AT CURLEW CREEK by David Malouf Chatto, £14.99, pp. 214 L ike its predecessor, Remembering Babylon (1993), which began with a whirling black......