24 JANUARY 1931, Page 27

THE MARRENDON MYSTERY, by J. S. Fletcher. (The Crime Club,

7s. 6d.), consists of sixteen short stories of the kind which we classify as detective fiction. They are ingenious and well written, and in other ways rather better than the usual story of this type, for often the mystery turns out to have been all a misunderstanding and usually the ending is other than that which the hardened reader would expect. Mr. Fletcher, too, is no devotee of the processess of the law, nor yet of the amateur detective, for in only two of the stories is anyone brought to justice, and then we are given good, if conventional, reasons, other than their crimes. for disliking the criminals. The stories, as a rule, fall short of being exciting, but they are amusing and decidedly pleasant.