Companions of the Khamseen

ORIGINAL SIN (195 pp.)--George Tabori--Houghfon Mifflin ($2.75).

Gifted Hungarian-born George Tabori, whose Companions of the Left Hand was one of last year's most singular and striking novels (TIME, June 24, 1946), seems to have written this psycho-thriller with his left foot. A khamseen howls for days in Cairo, wearing tempers thin as the hot, gritty sand seeps through the doors and windows of the Pension Malika Farida. On the fifth morning of the storm, Adela Manasse, wife of the pension's proprietor, is found dead in her tub, naked and smiling a "kindly" smile. How did she die and why did she smile? Original Sin explores this problem amid swirls of windblown sand and snarls of plot typical of Cosmopolitan magazine fiction--which is, in fact, what this novel is.

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