Warsaw

This bulging first novel collapses under the freight of an overpopulous cast, leaden pacing and clumsy prose. In WW II Warsaw, Jewish resistance leader Abrahmsp ok Bankart proves so dangerous a foe that the Nazis dispatch an officer to ferret him out. Posing as a Jew, SS Lieutenant Eugen Glueck infiltrates the ghetto, where his suffering and his exposure to the tragedies of the Underground foment an unlikely revulsion for his own cause. Characters are lost amid a sprawling set, and loose ends abound--the unexplained murder of a Jewish girl sent to a convent for safekeeping; the ineffectual machinations of a resistance fighter who doesn't look Jewish; the ominous introduction of Nazis who mysteriously fade from view. The language is ponderous and sloppy (``Victor's discussion of resistance had also progressively declined in substantiality''); unnecessary details about dress and food further retard the plot. (Nov.)