The characteristic qualities of detachment and insight which we find in Rhys Davies's work are particularly exemplified in his more recent novels and stories…. It is noteworthy that in these novels and stories he continues to surprise the reader with some new setting, some new situation, or some sharply observed character which both particularises and illuminates his theme.

Davies's talents as a novelist have never been shown more impressively than in The Painted King (1954). The skeleton of the novel is the story of Guy Aspen, an immensely successful writer-producer-actor of London musical comedy. (p. 55)

Around this regal figure of show business, Davies creates three or four characters, people very much in their own right, from whose perspective we see Aspen's character piece by piece. There is Guy's dominant mother, the singer and old trouper, Madame Annie, Guy's assistant, Judith Cottar, and Jorgen, another of Guy's retinue. All these...