[Beneath the Stone is] a slick, sophisticated, competent job. (p. 356)

Despite its trivial plot, the novel has political implications which deserve discussion. Borst is represented as a person of fairly decent impulses; his Prussian arrogance appears as a compensation for his feeling of inferiority vis-à-vis the English. He is sensitive and almost cultured, much more interesting than his English prisoner. It is dangerous, I think, that the Englishman never answers Borst's contentions that the German aristocrats are a higher race, far superior to the "stupid bourgeoisie" who control the democracies. And does Borst's suicide imply that the traditional Prussian officer is a good German after all, or merely that the game is up for Prussia? Presumably the latter, but Mr. Tabori could express things a good deal more clearly.

The Gestapo agent is an incredible mixture: he knows philosophy and literature, has an almost Proustian memory, and...