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SIR RICHARD MUIR : A MEMOIR OF A PUBLIC PROSECUTOR: Written by Sidney Theodore Felstead and edited by Lady Muir. (Bodley Head. 18s.)—Since nothing, not even a Test Match, is of such interest, immediate and lasting, to the public in general as an exciting crime in private life (public tragedies and horrors never have quite the same fascination, for there is not the feeling generated that similar events may happen any moment in the next street or in your own country parish), it follows that this Memoir of a famous Public Prosecutor ought to have a very large circulation. It lacks one thrill, however ; there was nothing sinister in Sir Richard Muir's reputation. Everybody spoke of him with liking, and he conveyed the impression that, when he was on the trail of some offender, even humanitarians must wish to see the quarry run down. This book helps to explain the atmo- sphere almost of genial clemency which surrounded the name of this famous sleuthhound. He was of course not only a
prosecutor; he prosecuted Gerald Bevan, he defended Whitaker Wright. But the stories of company promoters, however, are side shows - what the public really wants in a book of this kind is murder, and it gets it in a well-selected assortment. Crippen furnishes the piece de resistance ; and certainly the notes for Muir's speech were well worth printing as a model of how to arrange the skeleton of a long and complex statement, leading to the irresistible conclusion.
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