Perfect timing -- publication date celebrated by the violent (?) death of King Boris, and the very forces let loose that Michael Padev analyzes in his illuminating Escape from the Balkans. A native Bulgarian, and a correspondent for the London Times, his awareness of the contradictory forces and his statements regarding them make his timely book much more than another escape story. He discusses at length the kinship with Communism and Soviet Russia, the antagonism on the part of the masses to the Nazis and the alliance foisted upon them by the King. He touches only in passing on the Partizan movement in Jugoslavia, but sufficiently to show where his sympathies lie. Here is a book the sale of which is virtually made for you by the headlines.