The heroine [of House of Shade] is an English rose of truly startling naivety. ("Your I.Q. is probably the lowest on record," says her admirer with a rare flash of insight.) This silly girl, having been incompetently framed for a murder in London, dashes off to her mother's house in Zanzibar accompanied by a whole plane-load of suspicious characters. There is mention of Communists and buried treasure before she just escapes being pushed out a window. Miss Kaye writes pleasantly and the Zanzibar settings are agreeable, but the whole thing has a fainly old-fashioned air, reminiscent of those innocent adventure stories which filled young people's magazines in the 1930s.

"Professional Skulduggery," in The Times Literary Supplement (© Times Newspapers Ltd. (London) 1959; reproduced from The Times Literary Supplement by permission), No. 2996, July 31, 1959, p. 445.∗