Evan Hunter has a good sense of structure, he can write a lively scene with realistic dialogue, and he can keep a plot in motion; nevertheless, his "Nobody Knew They Were There" is curiously out of focus. It is a futuristic sort of book with only contemporary relevance and very poor projection, a realistic sort of parable that fails in realism though it has its moments of strength as a parable.

It starts off with a man about to blow up a bridge. He manages to project the image of fearless, practical secret agent but it is a fragile image. His co-conspirators, amateurish though they are, find him out rather quickly. They merely wanted him, in the time of the novel which is some few years from now, to kill the president and thus end oppression and war—the president is narrow, strong, and effective. The assassin thinks...