["The Inspector"] is less a story than a crusade. Written with Jan de Hartog's characteristic tidy craftsmanship, "The Inspector" is nonetheless and primarily a pièce a thèse….

De Hartog still remembers, along with the other horrors, the price paid by the Jews of Europe during the last war. It is therefore lest we forget that he has written this story of how in 1946 a middle-aged Dutch Police inspector smuggled a dying Jewish girl into Palestine….

Inevitably, since martyrdom tends in itself to dehumanize both those who invite it and those who have it thrust upon them, the young Jewish girl around whom and for whom this book was written remains a wraith despite every precaution her creator takes to make her real. But Inspector Jongman, so mousy outside and so lambent, within, is somehow entirely believable, since mountains have often enough been moved by mice…. But...