Len Deighton's "XPD" is a complicated mess without a single character who is interesting enough to make us want to unravel it. The book has to do with an alleged clandestine meeting between Winston Churchill and Hitler in June 1940, for the purpose of discussing England's surrender. Mr. Deighton expresses the grudging belief that, if this story were to get out, it would demoralize, even undo, England and West Germany.

He is one of those authors who assumes that an undistinguished style and a byzantine superfluousness of plot will sell any suspense novel. He may be right. "XPD" stands for "Expedient Demise." In this case, it is the expedient demise of the craft of fiction.

Anatole Broyard, "Books of the Times," in The New York Times (© 1981 by the New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), May 13, 1981, p. 17.∗