Books in Brief: The Laying on of Hands

The Laying on of Hands, by Arthur Arent (Little, Brown, $5.95).

Joan Gunther has an unexpected visitor—the Austrian grandmother she hadn’t realized was still alive. The war and all that. The old lady dies while on the visit. Joan’s lawyer writes to Vienna only to be told that Mrs. Gunther, wife of the famed comic Uwi Gunther, had died of cancer ten years earlier and was buried in such and such a cemetery. Who was the old lady then who had visited Joan? How could the passionate love letter from her husband, dated 1939, which was found in her effects have been written by the same person who penned the note telling Joan of her grandmother’s arrival? Joan and her young man set out to unravel the mystery and run afoul of several other international operations. Israeli secret agents are chasing a fugitive Nazi doctor who performed obscene experiments on human beings at Hitler’s behest, as are personal friends of the late Uwi Gunther, who had disappeared into a concentration camp after making one too many cracks at the expense of the Fuehrer post-Anschluss. Illegal arms merchants are also involved, as are stray villains from Haiti and other areas. Arthur Arent lays it on a bit thick— it may be his radio and TV background— and some of the incidental business is irritating. Dreadfully irritating. The dénouement, while skilfully plotted—it answers all the unanswerable questions—you will never (on soberer thought) believe, but Arent hasn’t cheated on his readers. The Laying on of Hands is of the Fleming rather than the Le Carré school and rather better than many. Rate it B to B plus.

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Priscilla L. Buckley

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The Laying on of Hands, by Arthur Arent (Little, Brown, $5.95).

Joan Gunther has an unexpected visitor—the Austrian grandmother she hadn’t realized was still alive. The war and all that. The old lady dies while on the visit. Joan’s lawyer writes to Vienna only to be told that Mrs. Gunther, wife of the famed comic Uwi Gunther, had died of cancer ten years earlier and was buried in such and such a cemetery. Who was the old lady then who had visited Joan? How could the passionate love letter from her husband, dated 1939, which was found in her effects have been written by the same person who penned the note telling Joan of her grandmother’s arrival? Joan and her young man set out to unravel the mystery and run afoul of several other international operations. Israeli secret agents are chasing a fugitive Nazi doctor who performed obscene experiments on human beings at Hitler’s behest, as are personal friends of the late Uwi Gunther, who had disappeared into a concentration camp after making one too many cracks at the expense of the Fuehrer post-Anschluss. Illegal arms merchants are also involved, as are stray villains from Haiti and other areas. Arthur Arent lays it on a bit thick— it may be his radio and TV background— and some of the incidental business is irritating. Dreadfully irritating. The dénouement, while skilfully plotted—it answers all the unanswerable questions—you will never (on soberer thought) believe, but Arent hasn’t cheated on his readers. The Laying on of Hands is of the Fleming rather than the Le Carré school and rather better than many. Rate it B to B plus.