RIDE FOR A FALL

The suicide of David Braganza, a not altogether likable but rather charming dilettante in the British Foreign Service, leaves its shadows of doubt- political and emotional, and his friends and intimates and an occasional Communist fill in the back-drop to his high jump from a hotel window. There is Rex Campbell, a journalist, whose heavy drinking and easy tastes in women still did not blur his possessive love for Jennifer, his wife; Jennifer, whose picture was found in Braganza's wallet, an ironic footnote to an inconclusive affair; Hermione Braganza, whose cold elegance belied her warm interest in her husband; the gentlemen of the Foreigh Service- who had reasons to suspect Braganza's fellow-travelling companionship; etc., etc. But it is Braganza himself who gives the final verdict on his life, and the death which was the only answer to a cul de sac which demanded fuller explanations for an empty existence.... Personable, but unprincipled, people- at a point of no return- this is groomed by glamor and has a certain aura- applied rather than bona fide. Rentals.