Books: Sermon for the Merciless

THE TORMENTORS (250 pp.)—Richard Cargoe—Sloane ($3).

The prisoners were bound by a long rope. As they marched past the handsome NKVD lieutenant, they thought him "a rescuer who had providentially arrived to remove their chains." This feeling was an illusion, of course, for the lieutenant was taking them to Siberia to work as slaves in the gold mines. But he seemed so kind, so eager to treat them as unfortunate men rather than political outcasts, that for a while they could not help loving him.

As they drew closer to the mines, and as they suffered together through a freezing storm, the relationship...