Although the books of Conrad Richter tend to dwell on the past, there is a deceptive timeliness about much of this author's fiction, a tone of what might be called fashionable nostalgia. Each generation craves something different from the past, qualities the generation both lacks and misses. In his best work … Mr. Richter has afforded his readers the vicarious sense of heroism they long for without employing the pat heroics they have been schooled to suspect. His secret has been a style perfectly suited to his semi-legendary material: at once mannered and sensuous, lush yet restrained, so that inherently pompous or sentimental effects are just saved from becoming so by his instinct for severely relevant detail.

In "The Waters of Kronos" … Mr. Richter has once again attempted to infuse a highly nostalgic theme with dignity. John Donner, at the end of a long and successful life in the...