Books: Green Hell

DEATH IN THAT GARDEN (310 pp.)—José André Lacour—Rinehart ($3.95).

When Belgian-born Author José André Lacour outlined his Death in That Garden, he found himself at a writer's disadvantage. The setting was the upper reaches of Amazonia, but Lacour had never been there. So he left his home near Paris and spent three months in Brazil; including ten days on the Amazon—though quite comfortably on a friend's yacht. When his novel was published, one French critic flatly hailed it as "one of the masterworks of his generation." It is not that, but it is still one of the grimmest stories in some time...