23 MARCH 1956, Page 23

Tins M URDEROUS SHAFT. By H. J. Hultman. (Hammond and

Hammond, 9s. 6d.) This tale of the death of an ex-schoolmistress in West Virginia is one of those old-fashioned American detective stories that can be even slower in movement and gentler in style than our own body-in-the-library, bound-to-be-the-butler novels of the 1920s. Personally, I like them—even to the final ten pages of explanatory monologue from the detective.