A Flask for the Journey

Potpourri

THIS, philosophical thriller by the author of Odd Man Out is an inquiry into human freedom written as a mystery story with two sets of clues. A British prisoner of war learns in solitary confinement that true freedom exists only in the soul, is won by detachment from material life. Back in England, he is told a story which proves that love, too, is a fatal enslavement. The mystic’s credo is hardly a surprise ending to the quest, but the journey is full of suspense and the craftsmanship polished and adroit. The form book would seem to read: “By Eric Ambler out of Aldous Huxley. Lacks the class of its older stable-mate, The Fountain.”