Cameron Comes Through

Fans of McCutchan's hero Donald Cameron will be diverted by this flashback to his first adventure as an officer. A brand-new sub-lieutenant on the destroyer Wharfedale, Cameron (Cameron's Raid is part of the Allied effort to supply besieged Malta in the spring of 1941. Secret orders from Churchill himself send the ship to Crete, where a resistance leader is to be picked up and smuggled into Russia with proof of Hitler's plan to attack the U.S.S.R. Cameron is involved in some landlocked adventures before the rather lackluster climax occurs when the Wharfedale's skipper forces his way through neutral Turkish waters into the Black Sea. Cameron's phlegmatic derring-do is as admirable as ever, and shipboard life is again nicely drawn, but the book lacks the stylish seamanship that has made the series notable. (March 31)