Murder Without Tears
Case in the Clinic. By E. C. R. Lorac. (Crime Club. 7s. 6d.)
7s. 6d.)
Case in the Clinic would be an excellent example of the English type of detective-story but for the presence of two figures who purport to be Americans. These puppets unfortunately are caricatures of young dandies of the late 'fifties, and have no more to do with America of today than winged pigs. Suring and guessing and roundly swearing By lag, they have a disruptive effect on an otherwise admirable story, for their patent falsity is as comic as that of those jewel-recovering Oriental priests who were so busy avenging sacrilege in a happily past period of detective-writing. Mr. Lorac mounts a characteristically ingenious puzzle and breaks it down in the most elaborate and fair manner of the English school. But no amount of painstaking care over detail has power to carry : " Sure it'd be a dandy deed—that medium's got me guessing some," or " Sure Chief, you're a cute practioner . . ." While it is pleasing to be reminded of the dear old America of horse-drawn trolley-cars, free-lunch counters in saloons, and the Populist Party, one's pleasure is balanced by a feeling that time is a little too far out of joint.
In Memory of Charles is a reconstruction of a famous case which makes good reading, but which has the defects which such reconstruction is bound to entail. Good taste and the conventions stand between the author and the reality, and at the same time
while the trial may have cleared up the how and why, the p cution will have only built up a bare framework for the satisfa of the jury, and there will be big blanks in the' matters of em and motive ,that the court-records do not touch. The cast which In Memory of Charles is based hung on a murder singular brutality in which three men killed a man in blood, two holding him and the third shooting him between legs with a shot-gun. By the time legal processes discovered the nature of the crime feelings had been blunted reticences developed that left the motives leading to this ordinary combination utterly obscure. Wherever the gives the evidence it is thoroughly satisfactory, but it inadequate where it attempts to provide the missing reasons: black horror is too great for a logical explanation.
The Woman in Red is an excellently paced thriller cone with a kidnapping—as the coffee advertisement said, " Good the last drop." The last drop is, however, a little weaker than rest ; the anti-climax is, if a small blemish, a sufficiently asperating one. She Faded Into Air is neat and exciting if carefully enough assembled ; the loose ends put it out of from the puzzle point of view, but the thriller element will it. It is perhaps unfair to judge it on its puzzle-strength; belongs to the American school according to which honour satisfied if the reader has a chance to guess the answer— need not be possible or probable. The reader acquainted the machinery of the law may derive considerable entert. • from attempting to construct a case against the villain that be put to a jury, and in imagining Lord This or Mr. Justice comments on the conduct of the private detective concerned is legally an accessory to two murders before he brings his down. This game can be recommended for almost all dete stories ; it is surprising in what a large number of cases authors build up a climax which would lead to the arrest imprisonment of the detective and the release of the criminals. is also amusing to extend the process to civil suits, for ins to examine the possibility of entertaining slander-actions that usual literary investigation would unleash. The correct en to She'll Be Dead By Morning would show the detective goin: the chair and the villain being released for lack of evidence, , the story stops at a stage before this logical conclusion is read-. It is good knockabout murder set in the dream America, in u. the sheep are as quick on the draw and, if anything, tougher the goats ; fast, exciting, wholly improbable. Death in the S flirts continuously with the real world while. belonging in and machinery to the knockabout school. The two murders. corpse-mutilation, and the suicide take place at an experim theatre-colony in the American desert, where a modern production of II Trovatore is under way. Those who ha been tricked into experimental theatres in the past will r the full horror of the setting when they learn that the has been twisted to fit into the Spanish Civil War and that anvil-chorus is sung by workers of the F.A.I. busy turning armoured cars. . . .
Red Threads is top of the class : neat, fair and difficult fault. The puzzle is ingenious, the case against the murde absolutely sound, and the dividing line between the whites the blacks well defined. It makes a pleasant change to enco a few characters who respect the law and remain inside domain. Murder Out of Turn is a good second with an agrees detective and possible characters. Mr. and Mrs. North are same pleasant figures who used to appear in the New Yo stories, not yet over-familiar with crime. The puzzle is extremely complicated one, and the fault of the story is that authors have to cut their way out, rather than solve it.
JOHN FAIRFIEU).
Previous page
