THE CIRCLE OF THE MINOTAUR

A first novel, by an Englishman which attempts to reconcile the violence of war with the aftermath of peace and beyond its philosophic purpose-achieves a certain artistry in its understatement, its compression. Carlo, now a legend in his local village of Sestina (Italy) for having killed- as a boy of fifteen- a wealthy Blackshirt, returns there at thirty to deny the crime he did not commit- although it has given him stature. Refusing to bear this guilt (and another guilt -- the death of a German boy during the war- which is always with him), Carlo tells the true story to various people, is disbelieved by all save Gina- whom he loved and who now turns against him, and at the close is forced to kill again and refuses the escape offered him. A short novel which projects the climate of conscience affectingly, effectively, but not for a wide market.