The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-09-09

Padev asserts that although his
book deals to a certain extent
with prisons, camps, Gestapo
agents and hand to hand fights
with the police, 1t is definitely
not a horror book, nor 1t Is yet
another nv e-just-escaped- from-a-
INSTRUMENTATION camp' story"
Padev pictures the Balkans as an
economic and social unit. While
there are Bulgars, Serbs, Greeks,
Croats, Turks and a half a dozen
other nationalities mingled In the
Balkans, the people are nearly
akin. The governments, however,
are a different matter. Boris Of
Bulgaria is pictured as an oppor-
tunist monarch who led his nation
into war on the Fascist side while
his people were strongly pro-Ally.
The pro-Russian sentiment IN
Bulgaria is such, says Padev, that
there is truth In the statement that
III six Russians land at Varna, six
million will reach Sofia"-meaning
that the entire population, excepting
Of course the Quislings.
The book cuts deep with an
edge made Of the authors convic-
tons that O Balkan federation
alone can bring peace and social
Justice to the Balkans. He pulls no
punches. Example:
I'm the case Of an Allied and
non Russian invasion Of the Bal
kans," he says, "a deal with Boris
might succeed In the same way
that 1t succeeded with Darlan. OF
course, one cannot bank on there
being an assassin handy every
time"
PLAY FOR A CHANGE
Four years ago Sidney Kingsley
became alarmed by the fury Of Fas-
cist attacks on democracy and be"
gan a search for First Principles
thus he found the subject matter
for his play, THE Patriots" Gran
dom House: so.
Kingsley realized that the men
who laid the foundations Of this
nation have become to many plast-
er-of-paris busts "set IN inches TO
bore children with their immutable
and unnatural perfection" In his
play, produced In New York, Kings
ley presents the nations founders as
men who lusted and loved, ate and
drank, worked and played, idled and
fought, suffered sickness, pain and
ennui.
"The Patriots" Is a drama, by
It's present-day overtones, that Is
timely. It Is a dramatization OF
the birth Of Americas democracy
democracy at the crossroads
during an epochal period in Amer
Designated "the best play OF
1943" by the New York Drama
Critics Circle, 1.-THE Patriots will
bring before the reader a vivid pic
ture of the America for which our
patriots are fighting and dying to-
day.
PAIR OF THRILLERS
EERIER settings for a mystery
yarn than the abandoned MIL IN
Hermann Petersen's "Old Bones
(Duell. Sloane g. Pearce: so hap
pen along rarely. Add q pile OF
human bones, a dark and danger
GUS swamp and a cat (black), then
shake thoroughly as narrator Ben
Wayne unravels the snarl OF
murder which took place i've
years previously. AS clues are
gradually unearthed - one OF them
literally so-the atmosphere mem
ace turns into the genuine article.
The killer, seeing the perfect crime
go sour, keeps things popping right
up to the satisfactory. slamnaag
conclusion.
Another offering by the same pub
Usher at the same price Is rne
Blackbirder" by Dorothy B. Hughes.
Title refers TO a mysterious gent
who deals In the smuggling o. rel
ugees-mostly Nazi agents and tugl-
tives from the law-back and forth
across the border into Mexico by
plane. Julie Guile, who has tled
from Nazi-occupied Paris 70 New
York, finds herself involved N .
murder. She kills two birds with one
stone "a paWned diamond) BY Zee
ing the city and heading Tor new
Mexico 10 find the BlackbirdeF. oD-
service In event OF acute emergency.
FAadera az the War Council earn