RECENT & READABLE

Fiction

OF SMILING PEACE -- Stefan Heym --Little, Brown ($2.50).

In a super dime novel complete with spies and a beautiful adventuress, refugee-Author Heym (now with the psychological warfare division of the Army) pictures the power-poker played by Axis and Allies in North Africa. The most interesting character is Darlan-like Monaitre, who offers his troops to the highest bidder. Although the elements are similar, the effect is less striking than the author's Hostages.

TRAGIC GROUND -- Ersklne Caldwell --Duel], Sloan & Pearce ($2.50).

With characteristic (Tobacco Road) humor, Caldwell spotlights a Southern squatter community, called Poor Boy, and follows the dreamy, hard-drinking career of a onetime highly-paid war worker, called Spence Douthit, who amiably man ages to resist every attempted reform --including his own delinquent daughter's. Caldwell's characters, as usual, outrage every decent instinct and stir every other kind.

THE BUILDING OF JALNA -- Mazo de la Roche-- Little, Brown ($2.50).

This, the ninth of the Whiteoaks novels, goes back to 1850, when Adeline ("Grand ma" of Jalna) is a bride, an unruly Irish minx whom callous readers will want to smack in earnest as her husband threatens to do in fun. Adeline and Captain Philip build their new home in Ontario, begin raising their now famous family, and otherwise provide one more variation of the story pattern familiar to thousands.

EARTH AND HIGH HEAVEN -- Gwethalyn Graham -- Lippincott ($2.50).

When wellborn Erica Drake said she was going to marry her Jewish boyfriend, Father Drake howled his head off, Mother Drake wept torrents, the best people were appalled. But Erica stuck, to her guns. First published as a serial in Collier's, 30-year-old Author Graham's study of anti-Semitism in Canada would probably have stirred up more interest if it read more like a novel, less like a studied, romantic essay.

GENERAL

General RIDIN' THE RAINBOW -- Rosemary Taylor-- Whittlesey House ($2.50).

Big, breezy, cocksure Father, known to the thousands who read Chicken Every Sunday, has been blown up to book size. Daughter Rosemary admiringly reports how Father sought his pot of gold in the laundry business, a trolley-car line, a railroad, a bank, a dozen other get-rich-quick schemes. One of the few genuine high points is the story of the lady who reserved half the cellar when she rented her house, and went back to live in it during hard times.

AIR GUNNER -- Bud Mutton and Andy Rooney -- Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50).

Two Flying Fortress gunners give a cheerfully tough, somewhat jumbled ac count of the Eighth Air Force. More detailed books have been written on the same subject, but none more alive.

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