At His Command

Cynthia is obviously unsophisticated and naive, and her reaction is to feel that in some strange way she “belongs” to Paul. She will do anything he tells her to do, and some of his commands are humiliating in the extreme. Thus she becomes a classic example of the female victim—a victim of one cruel man, but also a victim of the society the advocates of Women's Liberation are struggling so valiantly to change. Whether or not Cynthia ultimately accepts her fate makes for an exciting, suspenseful story. Integral to that story is a closely woven, minutely detailed picture of contemporary America—a picture which lifts the book above the level of just another entertaining novel. It may be superfluous to point out that the author, Stanley Baker, is a man. We find it interesting to note, however, that he is a man in his sixties who has had exciting adventures of his own in almost every corner of the globe and who has arrived at his own very positive philosophy of life.