THE FLYING Fox (310 pp.)Mary McMinniesHarcourt, Brace ($3.95).
"Bad show that in Malaya."
"I dare say. Wasn't Old Milty out there . . . Bought it, I hear."
"Quite."
Thus the gin-bashing cronies of Milton Hall, hero of this brilliant first novel, might have summarized his brief and dreadful career as a British colonial officer in Malaya. The story is set in the fictional district of Telebu. State of Mandore. a few hours by car from Singapore. To the usual tropical discomforts is added the barbed wire which confines the town within its perpetual state...