Retreat From Rostov
$2.75 By RANDOM HOUSE
THE hero of this novel is Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, though he appears in it very little. He it is who directs the aggressive defense and the subsequent reconquest of Rostov. Then too, in the midst of these worries, he takes time to unsnarl the affairs of two American correspondents, Bess Elsenburg and Roger Dameron. For the most part we follow the Rostov campaign through snipyiets of individual accounts of people living and fighting on both sides. The story skips rapidly back and forth over the front — but the reader can follow these quick leaps with little discomfort. A spy hunt in the middle of the book achieves some real suspense, for the author has a genuine dramatic talent. And if no Germans or Russians are exactly like the people in this book, we have the pleased feeling that they should be.