THE ROBESPIERRE SERIAL

Carswell completes the Robespierre Serial (important enough to make Philby ""look like a coffee-break memo"") after a part Arab, part Belgian is killed, leaving behind him a scruffy little gutter girl, Minette, who knows more than she thinks about the Arab chief hidden in a desolate part of Spain to which they proceed by horse, mule and tired foot. At the end of this ""operational misunderstanding"" where partridge are flown to flush the Arab's falcons, there's one poor dead pigeon, Minette. . . . A little more than the usual convention -- smoothly processed in chromacolor (it will be a film), although Luard never quite finesses you out of the suspicion that you've read something almost like it. The scenic effects are best.