NIGHT OF THE FOX
by Jack Higgins
Simon & Schuster; 316 pages; $17.95
The author's own disbelief seems not to be wholly suspended in this drowsy, amiable thriller about the German Occupation of Britain's Channel Islands during World War II. The narrative is full of cinematic echoes. There is a real Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and a fake ("Heini Baum, Jewish actor and cabaret performer from Berlin and proud of it"), both of whom suggest James Mason in the title role of The Desert Fox. There is an Allied intelligence agent living hazardously as a German officer; Christopher Plummer lounged through...