VIA PANAMA

Another cruise novel. Harpers certainly took that disease hard. This time the trip from Southampton to New Zealand means five weeks in which various and sundry applecarts are toppled over, people fall in and out of love, marriages are made and unmade, pregnancies and appendicitis introduce new slants on current problems, and the monotonous round of shipboard life with the conventional high spots of the ship's concert, the inevitable fancy dress party, and so on find place amid the battledore and shuttlecock of personalities in too close conjunction. However -- the circulating library audience will find it entertaining enough reading.