William Mayne is a witty, highly individual writer, author of that very British, very special story, "A Swarm in May" and the tricky, imaginative "The Blue Boat." ["Underground Alley"] is possibly the most accessible for the average American reader that we have yet had here.

The setting is a Welsh border town where the townspeople are preparing for the annual Town Day and the visit of a prince. The rather complicated action revolves around the discovery by Patty, a whirlwind of a little girl, of a buried medieval street which explains an ancient mystery and an act of treachery which had long ago cast the town into royal disfavor…. There is much coming and going, a good surprise at the end, and general feeling of pre-festival excitement. Patty is so real that one regrets that the author never resolves her half-concealed conflict with her young, well-meaning stepmother—one...