Every two or three years along comes a Helen MacInnes spy story, and just off the presses is "The Hidden Target"…. Her latest effort follows the familiar MacInnes formula.

That means spies, the good versus the bad, a clean-cut American type, an attractive female, a romance, a great deal of double-dealing, the evil Russians somewhere around, Us against Them. Why change a good formula? It so happens that in "The Hidden Target," the evil forces are exponents of international terrorism. But there are hints that the Russians are pulling the strings. Otherwise the book contains no surprises….

If the action of "The Hidden Target" is entirely predictable, it is at least a tribute to the storytelling skill of Miss MacInnes that one gets involved in the book. She is a real pro. But perhaps the time has come for her to sit back and try to think of...