[Mr. Sloan Wilson] is an eminently proper writer with a shrewd eye to the feminine trade and Hollywood. But although his novel is in no way offensive, it is utterly hollow. In its narrative technique and vision, A Sense of Values suggests a kind of gigantic cliché, spun out over six hundred unruffled pages. The entire design is weary with previous use…. The scenario writer will be able to leave the text intact: "I realized that everything I had to say she already knew. Her hair smelled sweet. Her hands told me that she needed me." Fadeout, soft organ music flowing into the dawn. And everything in the long narrative has the same celluloid inevitability. On his first ship, Bond performs precisely the same gestures of grave incompetence and nascent triumph as are performed in The Caine Mutiny and The Cruel Sea. His remembrance of uneasy adultery is...