City of Spades is a perfectly straight, unaffected story about a cheerful, bounding Nigerian boy and his life and downfall in London. The lodging-houses, the clubs, the pubs, the whole perimeter-life of a coloured community, are presented by a truthful expert to the innocent eye…. This novel has no trace of artfulness, but much art in the presentation of the various types. Johnny Fortune may seem a little too bright and shiny, Mr Karl Marx Bo and Mr Ronson Lighter a little too comic to be true; yet the attitude of the other characters towards them gives them validity.

This is a good, clear piece of story-telling with a neat and acid ending. Would the cards have been stacked quite so hard against Johnny? Probably yes. Do we believe in Miss Pace and Mr Pew of the BBC? Well—in a Miss Pace and a Mr Pew. Are...