If Charles Dickens were alive today and residing in the Midwest, he undoubtedly would have come up with a character like our Cassie in The Peeping Lens. Cassie is a poor waif--a nubile, sexy, enchanting, and not very bright woman-child who goes through life not truly comprehending the difference between good and bad, allowing herself to be led by others. Although half a hundred people plunder her body's riches, she remains innocent and trusting to the end. Cassie undeniably is the victim, yet it is she who is ultimately disgraced, arrested, imprisoned! And not even then does she realize what she has done wrong. Leroy Biscayne, a promising young San Francisco writer, has written what we feel to be one of the most movingly powerful novels of the year. It sparkles with humor; its dialogue is so real that one can almost smell the dust blowing across the Oklahoma plains at the beginning of the story.