Michael Frayn's first novel, The Tin Men, is a fast, swooping performance by one of our very few serious satirists. In the past he has exposed so brilliantly some of the many vulgarities of modern life—the insidious message of the advertisement, the creepy crookedness of our P.R. workers, the stupidities conceived daily in our boardrooms—that he has become the only hatchet man of contemporary letters to combine a consistent attack with something that looks like a purpose. In The Tin Men Mr Frayn satirizes and parodies, probes and pounces, with all his considerable skill. This is a funny book and delightful to read; but it doesn't quite work as a novel. It is more like a particularly good Frayn piece blown up to size, with extra bits added and a plot thrown in. The characters really are tin men—templates for thousands of others, representatives...