22 NOVEMBER 1957, Page 62

Landed Gently. By Alan Hunter. (Cassell , 1 Is. 6d.) There

was 'something suspiciously like moisture' in the cockney sergeant's eye over the Chief Inspector's kindness to the kiddies; the American lootenant talks about 'a real live British lord,' in whose features 'assuredly there was the stamp of high breeding'; and the Chief Constable says 'damn those fellers' to a police surgeon who has-inevitably-a Scots accent. Seldom have SO many cardboard characters uttered so many clichés over so improbable a murder.

CHRISTOPHER POI