4 OCTOBER 1957, Page 46

It's a Crime

The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones. By Charles Neider. (Muller, 13s. 6d.) Novel of suspense set in the Far West of the heroic age— the 1880s: a gunfighter is caught, escapes just before he is due to be hanged and returns, driven by some tragic compulsion, to his inevit- able death„ Baldly and beautifully done, as if by his fellow-gunfighter, in prose of saga-like simplicity. Closer to Western narrative ballads, or to films such as High Noon and 3.10 to Yuma,

than to run-of-the-mill crime novels. It might well last long enough to become a small classic.