Books: Koestler on Palestine

THIEVES IN THE NIGHT (357 pp.]—Arthur Koestler—Macmil Ian ($2.75).

It can never be said of Arthur Koestler that he picks the easy ones. In his powerful anti-Communist novels (Darkness at Noon, Arrival and Departure) and non-fiction (The Yogi and the Commissar) this tough-minded graduate of Europe's concentration camps sprang hip-deep into the great moral problems of our time. At 41, ex-Communist, now-Socialist Koestler is easily the top intellectual argufier writing today. Still picking the tough ones, he has now written a novel about Palestine and the Jews who claim it as their home. Thieves in the Night will not add a cubit...