NEW DETECTIVE FICTION
So Many Doors. By Anne Hocking. (Geoffrey Bles. 7s. 6d.)
ON this occasion the traditionalists, represented by Messrs. Punshon and Betteridge, have a little in hand against the experimentalists. Cast Iron Alibi, for instance, is an out- standing example of the straight detective novel, without frills or fancy work. The murder is that of an actor-manager : the theatrical background, neatly filled in, is not allowed to distract our eye from the outlines of a shapely plot : there are a couple of sound, unobtrusive detectives and a pestilently officious coroner. What a pity that Mr. Betteridge should have to rely upon our old bu3bear, the revolver fitted with a silencer! And, when the rest of his police work is so good, it is sur- prising to find one of his policemen trotting out the incorrect formula : " I warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence against you." Whereas Mr. Betteridge only gives us three possible suspects, Mr. Punshon offers nine. It is, indeed, a little difficult to keep one's eye on them all, though their characters are well differentiated ; the action, too, meets with a severe check about two-thirds way through the book. Apart from these points, this study of crime and contumacy in high society is excellent, testing alike our own acumen and
Sergeant Bobby Owen's gifts of observation and sturdy inde- pendence. We would not -for worlds have missed Lady Alice, either—that high-handed explorer who makes herself equally at home in a hat-shop and with a horse-whip.
For Miss Boutell, the oblique approach, the discreet whisper of malice, the revolver concealed in the opulent bouquet. Nor does her revolver need any patent silencer: it is fired off-stage, a mere phantom of sound, and we do not much care (nor, indeed, is it too easy to tierteiye) who pulled the trigger. All the violence in this novel is, as someone said about E.- M. Forster's, "tea-tabled." It is admirably done, no question of it. The house-party of women=relations reunited to celebrate the birthday of a dead woman. Claudia, who holds all the reins and purse-strings in her jealous hands : the out- rageous Rita : Frankie, so clever at business, such a fool at love—in one way or another, all the characters sorely need the money which Claudia could well afford and is in justice bound to give them. Mr. Kitchin, in his equally delicate manner, proposes another variation on the theme of great expectations and impatient heirs. His hero, Malcolm Warren, whom we met in the classic Death of My Aunt, is a kind of Everyman of crime detection : he has the same -distaste as any of us would have for being drawn into the orbit of criminals ; he investigates with the same initial timidity ; he is snubbed and led by the nose at first, but this treatment only calls out all his polite pertinacity. In fact, he is such an appealing, real character that for the sake of his company we would follow him through cases very much less interesting than Death of His Uncle.
The Devil in Greenlands will appear to the more straitlaced detective fan something of an unseemly frolic. I myself, I must admit, took it and liked it. Greenlands is a village in Somerset, where, almost simultaneously, the publican's erring daughter gives birth to sextuplets and a dastardly murder takes place. This double event puts the village, as they say, on the map. The Colonel, the Hygienic Couple, the taciturn Major, the commuting Business-Man, the anguished Vicar—to say nothing of Farmer White, Dopey Davis, and a host of village worthies—all play their part. It would have been a better novel if Mr. Chance had shut his eyes consistently to the more serious aspect of his theme. In Murder is Easy Mrs. Christie is not seen at her best. For one thing, Poirot is not playing: and his understudy, a retired Indian policeman, though com- petent and likeable, cannot hold a candle to the Belgian star. Perhaps not so competent : at any rate, I had no difficulty in spotting the murderer, though in Mrs. Christie's previous books I have seldom been within a mile of him. Still, the book opens very nicely, and the love-story is agreeably developed. Mr. Berkeley has also temporarily lost his length. Death in the House is badly overpitched, offering us a murder- method so fanciful that any schoolboy could crack it for six. This is a pity, because the set-up in general is excellent : .the Government is introducing an India Bill ; a Hidden Hand writes to tell them they had better lay off ; they accept the challenge, but, in spite of elaborate police precautions, two successive Government spokesmen drop dead just as they reach the relevant clauses in their speech.
Mr. Hull is another good writer out of form. Like Mrs. Christie and Mr. Berkeley, he too falls away after a brilliant start. His opening chapter is as mad and satisfactory as they come. Guests invited to the house-of a retired school- master after a dance find their host disappeared, two total strangers in possession, and a village constable who knocks back a glass of their hosts' champagne in their presence with- out so much as a by your leave. All these phenomena are neatly exp:ained in the sequel : but I could not be much enthralled by the investigation, and few of the characters came properly alive. I do not know whether The Man Who Didn't Answer is Miss Oellrichs' first essay. in detection. It is, any- way, a promising one, and contains an original detective—a milkman who has seen something on his rounds which con- vinces him that young Peter Johnson is not guilty of the murder of which he has been convicted. Matt Winters—he has something of Asey Mayo about him—sets out to prove his friend's innocence, in the face of sceptical police and obstruc- tive small-town bigwigs. So Many Doors presents us with a murder worked out on the exact lines sketched for a fictional crime by a woman detective-novelist. The setting is Cyprus
and the criminal is easily guessable. NICHOLAS BLAKE.
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