HINGEING ON HOMICIDE
The Crooked Hinge. By John Dickson Carr. (Hamish Hamilton. 7s. 6d.) For Murder Will Speak. By J. J. Connington. (Hodder and Stoughton. 7s. 6c1.) Death Flies Low. By Neal Shepherd. (Constable. 7s. 6d.) Cradled In Murder. By Rudd Fleming. (Hamish Hamilton.
• 7s. 6d.)
Documents Marked " Secret." By John Gloag. (Cassell. 7s. 6d.) Traitor's Way. By Bruce Hamilton. (Cresset Press. 7s. 6d.) The Fatal Holiday By Belton Cobb. (Longmans. 7s. 6d.) Tell Death to Wait. By Anita Boutell. (Michael Joseph. 73. 6d.) Death of an Innocent. ByJohn Newton Chance. (Gollancz. 7s.6d.) How Did Elmer Die ? By GeoffreyPhilip West. (Longmans. 7s.6d.) The Embarrassed Murderer. By Gail Stockwell. (The Bodley
Head. 75. 6d.)
IT is possible that a few curmudgeonly pedants may have objected to Mr. Carr's earlier books on the score of over-. fantastication. Yet his fantastic whorls and flourishes have seldom been, like icing-sugar piped on to a cake, mere adorn- ment : they have not only created atmosphere but usually held the key of the plot. This is more than ever true of The Crooked Hinge, which is his best story and a safe bet for the best detective novel of the year. The " Golden Hag," for instance, that strange automaton which runs amok in Farnleigh Court and nearly rubs out the redoubtable Dr. Fell himself, is not just a- pleasant conceit : it contains the murderer's secret, and tells us how he was able to despatch his victim in the sinister, sunken rose-garden, unseen himself though his victim was in full view of witnesses. The book opens uth a very pretty problem in identity, two men claiming the title and estate of Sir John Farnleigh : then, paradoxically, it 1, not the rightful heir but the proved iinpostor who is murdered: humour,- witchcraft, alarums and.exchrsions enliven the issue; and Dr. Fell brings the case to an end with—in his own phr
" a stinger whang in the gold."
The real villain of Mr. Connington's novel is not the murderer
but an anonymous-letter writer. -This .person, depicted in subdued but very effective colours, drives another character to suicide and is an integral part of the main murder-plot. It makes us wish for a full-length psychological study of a poison- pen writer (how well Mr. Iles, for instance, could do this): but, in the meanwhile, Mr. Cormington gives us an extra- ordinarily interesting account of the methods-employed by the Investigation Branch of the Post Office to expiSse these pests. There is a very cute alibi here, too, and some material which will exercise the radio enthusiast. I thought the murderer was unduly recklesi to speak-over the telephone : but, in his uhdemonstrative way, Mr. COnningtcui has presented us with a real teaser, and every credit is .due to Sir Clinton Driffield for solving it. I 'did riot 'Care very much for Mr. Shepherd's first book, mainly because his: detectivehad a habit, of patronis- ing his subordinates. Inspector Tandy has now got over this habit, and Death' -Flies -Low -is -highly to- be recommended, especially to those who are interested in scientific detection. The setting is an aircraft components factory attached to an experimental station. One of the key men there is murdered : Tandy, writhing in the toils of red tape which are most amus- ingly described by the author, has to find out whether it is sabotage or a private killing. The victim appears to have been struck by an invisible hammer (his neck is broken, yet there are no marks of violence on his face) : I guessed the method at once, but this did not diminish my interest in a book which shows Mr. Shepherd as a promising successor to the mantle of Freeman Wills Crofts.
Cradled In Murder is a queer, Faulkner-ish story about a degenerate Southern family, a young girl who knows that her father and mother have been murdered and that she will be murdered herself, and a professor of English, her lover, who falls under suspicion of killing her. The theme and some of the detail are gruesome to a degree, but the writing is of remark- able distinction and the characters stand out in the boldest relief. " Arsenic shock," by the way, is a new one to me ; and even the sketchiest investigation would have shown that the professor could not have been guilty of the last murder. The hero of Documents Marked " Secret " has lost his memory and finds himself at a house-party in Norfolk, not sure whether he is a G.-man disguised as an advertising agent or an advertising agent masquerading as a G.-man. However, all his fellow guests turn out to be heavily disguised too, and you will enjoy this lively and satiric Secret Service tale with its excellent final twist. Traitor's Way is a more serious thriller, in which a young man imprisoned for a political offence breaks gaol and lands head foremost into a plot between Germany and certain reactionary leaders in England to invade Czechoslovakia. 'This book, written before the crisis, is no less prophetic than topical : you may find the political background rather vague, but the book's excitement and verisimilitude are undeniable.
The chief merit of The Fatal Holiday lies in the pleasant sketches of the Haviston family and of George Mull who preys upon them and gets poisoned. The crime interest is thinly spread, however ; there is too much repetition, and the police interrogations are unscrupulous to say the least. Miss Boutell's victim, an egocentric authoress, is almost too much of a cad to be convincing, while her chief narrator wavers between girlishness and hysteria : her tale has a good slant, though, and moves confidently. Death of An Innocent gives us a baffling and novel murder method, but little else. The detectives are ghoulishly flippant about the corpse, and De Havilland touches a new low in blundering obtuseness. For a writer of Mr. Chance's powers, this is a perfunctory book. How Did Elmer Die ? features an ingenious criminal and an unusual brand of killing : by comparison, Inspector Ferry's investigation is cumbrous and random. The Embarrassed Murderer starts with a New Year's Eve party in New York, and it took me the rest of the book to sort out the jam of char- acters presented in these first few chapters : one of them, a popular radio crooner, is treated with a nice sense of malice.
NICHOLAS BLAKE.
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