I WISH HE WOULD NOT DIE

A novel and a novelette complement each other in their pictures of English and Egyptians during World War II. In them a whole series of questions, of points of view, of basic concepts are reflected through the characters and the situations in which they are involved. The shorter piece deals with the friendship between a British and an Egyptian pilot and their loyalty to each other until they are parted by death; the longer piece focuses on an officer's indignation over a superior's stupid blunder and the fate that waits for him when he refuses an assignment. Men under stress and living with a heightened sense of humanity here present the issues that haunt them and the two pieces add up to well argued ideas backgrounded with action and suspense. A masculine audience for this.