Books: For Erin Dear

INSURRECTION (248 pp.)—Liam O'Flaherty—Little, Brown ($3).

The story of the Irish rebellion has been told so often that any Irishman who wants to tell it again should first issue the general invitation, "Stop me if you've heard it." But Ireland's Liam O'Flaherty, author of that fine old favorite, The Informer (which a lot of people think was written by Victor McLaglen), takes up the theme as if no O'Faolain, O'Casey or O'Flaherty had ever played a variation on it before—and in two ticks he has the frayed old harp twanging away as rich as the day it was strung.

Author O'Flaherty's hero...