COLD WATERS

Those who remember Hubbard's earlier books and in particular the remote Holm Oaks will again find that he is engaged in a withdrawn, watchful, waiting game. On a whim Giffard accepts an offer to leave a dull London job and become the boatman handyman for a Mr. Callender on an isolated island where something has happened but what? And where he is the occasional sexual release for two women. Mr. Hubbard an able writer, keeps the attention of his readers largely via the understated, unspecified expectation of more than really occurs.