​Irving Wallace has written a magnificent and mighty novel which outshines his previous bestsellers, The Prize and The Man in its theme, its brilliantly realised characters, its clever construction and its sheer unputdownable readability. It is immensely long because it interlocks four different sets of people whose lives reach a climax during the period of a Summit Conference in Paris, whose stories could well make four separate novels. The set- ting moves from London to Vienna, Venice and the Riviera as the contestants in the fight for professional and personal survival converge on Paris. The story is packed with intrigue, romance, black- mail, and all the basic elements of a thriller. The cast is international, the impact tremendous.