Jack Walker had his first taste of the excitement and fulfillment of pitting his skill and luck against death while serving with an armored division during the war, and discovered this was necessary to his life. Now at thirty-five, he is a racing car driver on the four man team of a French automobile manufacturer. For a while, it looks as if the death of a good friend who was trying to emulate him and Walker's love for a clean-cut young American girl will change his way of life. It doesn't. The girl is killed in an auto accident in Spain and he decides that he must continue seeing how tough death is and proving that he, Jack Walker, is tougher. The scenes of the European auto racing milieu, and in particular the famed Mans race are the best thing about this stiff-upper- lip, drink 'em-the-table, pseudo-Hemingway novel.