Books: Catalytic Agent

Catalytic Agent

I AM JONATHAN SCRIVENER—Claude Houghton—Simon & Schuster ($1). One James Wrexham, impoverished but well-educated Englishman past his first youth, is distastefully employed in a real-estate office. One day he answers an advertisement in the London Times, is accepted, becomes secretary to mysterious, invisible Jonathan Scrivener.

Secretary Wrexham never sees his employer, who goes abroad after hiring his secretary solely on the strength of his letter of application. Wrexham’s only duties are to live in Scrivener’s London flat, catalog his library, receive his friends, write occasional reports to the absent employer. One by one Scrivener’s friends turn up in search of him, get acquainted with Wrexham, tell him what they think of Scrivener. Each description is different. None of the friends have met, but through Wrexham they become intimate. Complications ensue. Soon Wrexham is convinced that the whole business is an experiment of Scrivener’s, a carefully laid plot to bring these varied types of men and women together, to see how they will react on each other.

Author Houghton works the suspense up to a most respectable climax, then leaves it there. Jonathan Scrivener appears, the book ends. Nothing is explained.

Author Claude Houghton. English poet, playwright, novelist, has also written: The Phantom Host, The Tavern of Dreams, Judas, In the House of the High Priest, Neighbors, The Riddle of Helena, Crisis.