1 MARCH 1930, Page 49

HALF MAST MURDER, by Milward Kennedy. (Gollancz. 7s. &L)—The remarkable

thing about this Story is That the characters in it appear to be human beings : that is, they are neither wholly good, wholly bad, nor- wholly consistent in either. This virtue in Mr. Kennedy's writing even humanizes the police, and it is refreshing to find that one of these meta.: niorphized beings actually solves the problem in-the end, though not without one or two false starts. The murderer, also, is not the villain, nor is the villain the murderer. In fact; the only unconvincing part of the book is the conduct of the murderer himself, which is in part the reason why the mystery is likely to keep the reader at bay till the end, and in such an odd example of this art, the end comes all too soon.