10 FEBRUARY 1956, Page 24

THE LONG BODY. By Helen McCloy. (Gollancz, 10s. 6d.) Manufactured

suspense thriller, from a writer who can usually be relied on to cajole the reader into accepting an impossible plot before stunning him with a rational solution. Here, however, Miss McCloy has gone too far in inviting us seriously to believe that an American diplomat's elderly wife may have murdered (while sleepwalking) the girl whom she suspects of being a Communist agent responsible for her husband's death. Some atmospheric writing, almost as extravagant as the heroine's behaviour.