14 JUNE 1957, Page 25

The Midnight Plumber. By Maurice Procter. (Hutchinson, 10s. 6d.) Low

life in Manchester, which would be even more convincing that it is if the city hadn't become `Granchesteri' its Mid- land Hotel 'the Northland,' and Strangeways Jail `Farways.' But this author conveys better than most other English crime-writers the atmo- sphere of second-rate out-of-London boozers, with their tarts, pimps and petermen, coppers and cornerboys. As near as one can reasonably hope to get, in fiction, to the provincial under- world and its people, and to how a local police force goes about its business.