Crime for the Holidays

Murder by Experts. By Anthony Gilbert. (Crime Club. 7s. 6d.) Dora Beddoe. By Winifred Blazey. (Michael Joseph. 7s. 6d.) A.B.C.'s Test Case. By • " Ephesian " (Bechofer Roberts).

(darrolds. 7s. 6d.) - The Killing-Bottle Murder. By Louis Anderson Fenn. (Methuen. 7s. 6d.) The Poison Cross Mystery. By Inez Haynes Irwin. (Heine- mann. 7s. 6d.) Ma. GILBERT has all along shown promise of writing a first- class detection novel, and now he has triumphantly brought it off. Murder by Experts has everything—atmosphere and

colour, engaging chapter-headings, originality of plot, good dialogue, varied and convincing characters, a brilliant double twist at the end, and a general air of distinetkin. It must be one of the very best novels that the Crime Club has' produced. What a relief to find the murdered man a sympathetic charac- ter for a change ! Sam Rubenstein is the nicest kind of Jew, able, cultured, amusing and quiet, a connoisseur of Chinese att. He disappears : his car is found shattered at the bottom of a cliff ; but days later, when his Chinese gallery is opened, his body is discovered there stabbed to death. Fanny Price, a beautiful, a moral but quite human creature, is arrested for the murder. Her lover; Curteis, sets about disproving the charge. He enlists the aid of a lawyer, Arthur Crook—a most formidable man of whoM Mr. Gilbert will, I hope, let us see a good deal more. Curteis was a spy in the War : but he can never before have-encountered 'such bizarre and perilous situations as befell him while investigating this most expert of

murders. - . -

" Why shouldn't one push one's mother down the stairs ? " queries Dora Beddoe.. And after eighty pages of Dora's mother—her selfishness, stupidity, hypochondriac self-pity (" you won't have me 'here much- longer "), her tantruths, domineering sweetness, greed, cossetings and eorsetings (" lace so much tightes fur ate Vicar "), one is, temptedtomomicr whither there" may not bi- such a thing fiS jtistikabk alai riei e.

As it happened, Mrs. Beddoe fell downstairs and broke her

neck without any propulsion on her daughter's part. But neighbours gossiped ; :there were anonymous letters ; and Philip Beddoe, a charming man whose wit and selfishness had always been more than a match for his mother, takes Dora away to live in another district. Dora is absolutely devoted to her brother, and now she has_got hint :all to herself. But then Edna turns up : and Dora realises how unhappy her brother would be if he married Edna. And then Dora ant Edna were standing one dark: night at the end of a pier . .

This book is a convincing study of the type called for the sal:: of convenience " repressed :Spinster." It contains enough pity and horror to satisfy both Miss Dorothy Sayers and

Aristotle. I think the colour is laid on to Mrs. Beddoe a bit too thick ; and I don't feel that Philip Beddoe's spiritualism- exposing hobby is bound in tightly enough with the rest of the plot. Apart from that, I give very high marks to Miss Blazey for a book that stands comparison with Mr. Iles' Malice Afore-

thought.

A.B.C.'s Test Case is the first full-length appearance ot a detective familiar to magazine readers. A.B.C. Hawkes is a scientist who dresses—and often behaves—like a modern version of Mr. Pickwick. Hawkes investigates the death of

Sir Osbert Robson, -a motor-racing baronet whose Bentley crashes on a steep hill. Once it is proved that the car has been tampered with, there are plenty of suspects—Robson's chauffeur, his mistress, his secretary, his step-daughter, and a psychologist whc believes that he can scientifically prove survival after death by means of word-tests applied through a medium. All these people have good reason to want the baronet out of the way (the tradition in baronets is interesting-- fifty years ago they were suave and were exposed in the last act, today they are offensive and get murdered in the second

chapter). The plot hinges on- the word-tests. We know that hesitation in answering any given test-word, not the answer finally given, is what betrays the subject's state ot mind : it is wrong for "Ephesian's " suspects, after hesitating, to utter incriminating words—the hesitation should have given them time to think out non-committal ones. Apart from this flaw, A.B.C.'s Test Case can be highly recom- mended.

I shouldn't care to get on the wrong side of Mr. Fenn. He is a scientist by profession, and what he doesn't know

abOutpoisons could be put into a very much smaller receptable than even the Borgias used. John Randall dies in the presence of his broker, Philip Cooper.- He has been killed

by cyanide, but no trace of . that poison is found in his stomach nor are there any puncture marks to suggest that it was injected. The implication is that he muse haVe been compelled to breathe cyanide -fumes ; and when the police discover in Cooper's attach-case a cyanide killing-i?Ottlei, hi; .-arrest is inevitable. Randall's secretary and her lover, a young doctor, believe in Cooper's innocence and finally prove it. "-This is one of the . most ingenious long-distance killings

I have come across. . . .

" Who," asks the blurb of. The- Poison Cross Mystery,

.

" was the -ruthless fiend who had murdered an honoured

member of- the community in cold blood at midnight ? To solve --this prciblem, the reader and Patrick- O'Brien - Chief -of Police have not only to track dovin a ruthless

fiend -but also. to -run- the gauntlet of Mrs. -Irwires prose. Words (for once) fail me in. trying to do justice to the latter :

I had best let it srieak for itself : here are some samples :

it emerald fusion would precipitate back into the ta'm

detailed grass."

. the wand-figtged, red-haired girl who spluttered, inhibitio; silvery mirth."

The wand-figured girl—she is the heroine—does- more than splutter : she is a champion gusher too : e.g.: " But it's too—too--' Beatrice insisted. 'It's frightfully too- ish !'"

We are not surprised to hear later that " Jono impaled her on the quizzical scorn of his swift glance.") That enviable class of readers who can read books without noticing the words they are written in will find plenty of excitement it they follow Mrs. Irwin to Cape Cod : I confess to having been stunned near the start and rendered incapable of further interest in the proceedings.

Nicrrowis BLAKE.