When a novelist embeds quotations from some fictitious novel in his/her own text [as Muriel Spark does in Territorial Rights], it is, of course, always with aesthetic intent, usually parodic. The glum kitchen-sink realism of Anthea's library book, its plodding record of banal thoughts and predictable emotions, is clearly intended to contrast with the sprightly narrative style, the glamorous local colour, the dazzlingly complex intrigue of Territorial Rights, and perhaps to underline the advantages enjoyed by a novelist residing in Italy. 'It may seem far-fetched to you, Anthea,' says Grace Gregory, reporting the latest developments to Anthea by telephone, 'But here everything is stark realism. This is Italy.'

We know from her previous novels that Muriel Spark is fascinated by the mixture of cynicism and passion, corruption and beauty in the Italian scene, finding in it (much as the Elizabethans found in Machiavelli's Italy) an image of contemporary decadence more to her purposes than dull old England. In Territorial Rights she has married this setting to a theme from her New York novel, The Hothouse by the East River: the resurrection of old ghosts and guilts from World War II….

Territorial Rights has no central character, which makes for a diverting international comedy of manners, as the narrative perspective shifts from one character to another, observing them all observing each other, but at the same time leaves the reader sufficiently detached to reflect on how 'far-fetched' the plot is. Nor does the novel throw the reader off balance, as Mrs Spark's novels usually do, by exposing and undermining fictional conventions…. Territorial Rights is a highly entertaining novel: it tickles, it intrigues, it beguiles. If, in the end, it disappoints, that is because the author is one of our most gifted and original novelists. Even so, it's better by far than most of the novels in Anthea's library.