It's hard to believe that novels like [The Scarlatti Inheritance] are still appearing in 1971. But maybe you've been longing for a revival of those Lanny Budd goulashes, in which historical figures rub elbow-patches with fictional creations, all of them in the process being rendered not a little incredible: Cordell Hull ("this good and honest old man"), Hess ("darkly cherubic"), Ludendorff, Goebbels ("this unattractive little man"), Hitler ("something cheap about him, something opportunistic"). So it goes. The technique of prefabricated characterization extends even more depressingly to the imaginary figures like old Elizabeth Scarlatti, one of the world's richest women, who is alternately a "legend in her own time," "a crusty, patrician eagle sweeping the infinite meadows of her own particular heaven," and a "cold but intense … killer." Matthew Canfield, minor government field-accountant, is "positive, sure, capable, fun … vulnerable … and expendable." The ultimate computerized product is Heinrich Kroeger (nee Ulster...