THE MAN DORMANT

In the international incident class this sleeked up tale of secret service along the Riviera tells how Adrian Dormant, a sculptor, is assigned, without explanation to Nice to renew his old friendship with American Fletcher Dow. In Dow's extravagant menage, with his pensioned mistresses, his alcoholic indulgences, Dormant makes connection with Hodder, Dow's newest protege, ties him up with money exchange and Russian alliance and other suspicious expatriates. With the plot for kidnapping the Admiral of the visiting English fleet, the murder of Hodder is not in motion, while Dormant's boss gets his fill of playing games in disguise and gets Dormant to finish his mission under duress. A malicious portrayal of the jabberwocky world of the polyglots, this achieves a pastiche of styles and themes and a certain cleverness in its clinical dissaction of enervated consciences and energetic eccentricities. The South Wind flavor in recognizable but just breezes through.