FLIGHT TO AFRICA

A first novel from Germany again spotlights the more sinister aspects of African Voodoo, practiced this time by a cult of fanatic women among the Moslem Negroes of West Africa. Its plotting and psychological credibility, exotic and erotic angles sustain suspense and excitement. The suicide of German-born Suzanne Lebrun is laid to the fact that ""she was a white woman on the point of becoming a black woman"" by the local doctor, and it develops that she had become a cultist and voluntarily sought death as the ultimate fulfillment. In spite of her ghostly reappearances, which affirm this belief of the small white colony, her husband, Marcel, is sure that the cause lies in her past and goes to Germany to seek out those who had known her there. But this proves nothing, and his compulsion to return to Africa brings him under the spell of the white-hating Ngangala, who, as his mistress, will, in her own good time, kill him too. Responsible scientists' findings on such cults, which are in a minority in Africa, indicate that this has been slightly jazzed up to titivate bored palates -- but it could prove catchy.