Books: Not for Maiden Aunts

THE WAGES OF FEAR (186 pp.) —Georges Arnaud — Farrar, Sfraus & Young ($3).

At the Zulaco oil fields, a great plume of fire rises from Well No. 16. The drill tower rears and twists. Thirteen men are dead. The fire rages on. Company inspectors decide that the fire can be snuffed only with explosives. Back at the port of Las Piedras, 300 miles away, sit two tons of nitro-glycerin—but can they be hauled across the shambles of a road that leads to the oil fields?

The story of The Wages of Fear is the story of how two young European derelicts, the...