29 JUNE 1956, Page 23

SWEET POISON. By Mary Fitt. (Macdonald, 10s. 6d.) A man

who lives in the past is murdered in the present, but the ingenuity of the plot is as nothing to that of the word-making : 'susurring' is presumably the present participle of the English verb, to susurr. A couple who have never even kissed plan their elopement in the same room, knowingly, as the injured husband; and one reads on, enthralled, to discover how many improbabilities ask to be swallowed before the end.