Kravnik Capers

DOWN COME THE TREES -- Anthony Thorne--Doubleday, Dor an ($2.50).

Anthony Thorne looks not unlike Richard Halliburton, and both have the endearing faculty of telling tall tales. Last week Author Thome's third book made the resemblance seem even stronger. Though he has not yet taken the royal road to the ladies-lecture platform, Anthony Thorne is obviously hoping for Hollywood. Down Come the Trees is too improbable a yarn to impress even a hot-weather reader, but its cinematic possibilities are patent. The crudely-drawn celluloid silhouettes in his latest story can be seen through at a glance, but enlarged by Hollywood sound and fury they might well be heard from in box-office terms.

On an Albanian hillside overlooking the sea, the post-War town of Kravnik is booming along at a great rate. In fact, it is a rare combination of modernist architecture, cosmopolitan inhabitants and the speed-up system. Beautiful to look at, Kravnik is a microcosmic capitalistic nightmare, presided over oy half-a-dozen commercial despots. Hamid, who has a perfectly good though rapidly fattening wife at home, lures stenographers into his sanctum and then makes a certain proposal. The Savoff brothers are never so happy as when they can devise some such scheme as dividing the 12-hour working day into 13 hours, to increase efficiency.

Beauteous Lisa is a humble stenographer in Hamid's office. She hates Kravnik. Her brother Primo, an ambitious young architect (temporarily unemployed), likes Kravnik. On the floor below them lives a mysterious Albanian. He hates Kravnik. And he has a really first-hand reason: as a baby he lived in the forest that was cut down in order that Kravnik might be. The Albanian is still just an untamed peasant at heart, but he has had a wonderful chemical training. In fact, he has discovered a new high explosive with which he plans to blow up Kravnik building by building. To the love-sharpened eyes of Lisa his little scheme is soon apparent, but no one else suspects him, even after he has blown up two of Kravnik's prize landmarks. In spite of Lisa's pleas, he firmly intends to go on from there; but in a street brawl he gets a clout on the head that leaves him blind for life. Thwarted but still untamed, he gets Lisa to guide him to the hideaway where his explosive is stored, intending to end it all. Arrived at the spot, he bids her farewell and takes off his clothes. But when she takes hers off too, he changes his mind.

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