For a legion of reasons [The Hydra Head] was both difficult to read and hard to put down. Should it be raised to the cinema screen, only a Fellini or a Kubrick could direct it and for only an audience in a narcotized high. This reviewer neither enjoyed the book nor could find himself capable of a favorable review.

The problems are many: the writing style; the arrangement of the book; the constant, though not clever, shift of character from one charade to another and from one place to another. Kafkaesque, maybe, but should Kafka write a spy story for today's clientele?…

Things are never what they seem to be and why never makes sense. The text jumps not merely with "Alice in Wonderland" quotes but with the unreality of Alice's world itself….

Though the book purports to be a spy story and an assassination thriller, it truly...