In the post-war years, the American political novel seems to have gone not in one direction but in three. The first is toward concern for America’s world role as seen in _Grand Design_. The second returns to the theme of corruption. The third leads to an exploration of domestic dangers to traditional American freedoms. Weller’s _The Crack in the Column_ pursues the international theme, indirectly indicating, upon the basis of lessons learned in Greece, the program which has resulted in the building of American air bases from Spain to Yugoslavia. Weller’s book is also valuable as a political history of wartime and post-war Greece. Besides the working of the wartime EAM front, the novel describes the pattern of planned Communist expansion and Western moves made to counteract it. Gallico’s _Trial by Terror_, besides being an instrument for criticism of the foreign policy which gave no protection to American citizens jailed and tortured behind the Iron Curtain, also records one tactic of the cold war deliberately intended to ruin American prestige in Europe. Three recent novels treat corruption on the local level. They are Charles Francis Coe’s _Ashes_ (1952), Mary Anne Amsbary’s _Caesar’s Angel_ (1952), and William Manchester’s _The City of Anger_ (1953). Although the theme is old, some of the actors are new. The lobbies and trusts have been replaced by a more sinister operative--the gangster. And the power behind the city government is not a single gang led by a “Little Caesar.” In _Ashes_ it is the Mafia, a transplanted Sicilian terrorist society. In _Caesar’s Angel_ the ruler is a national syndicate. The hero of _Ashes_ is given a short lecture on the economics of the ring: It is no longer possible for our interests to keep all their money profitably occupied. It piles up too fast. It threatens to become visible to the Federal taxing authorities. We are constantly seeking, and finding, new areas in which to invest. So-called legitimate areas. It is foolhardy, perhaps, to pay such taxes as legitimate commerce requires, but our sums are so vast that our interests feel that they should be converted into capital assets.