Farewell, Death
THIS is a voice valedictory, since hereafter I depart this column, and in this case (but not in all, not in all) it would have been nicer to go on a bang than a whimper. This the trade does not allow. January is a lean month, nearly all books published for turnover purposes only, and though the ones noticed are all all right, to have brought in more to fill the column would have been to name books for which even dis- praise is too much notice.
Anthony Lejeune's Duel in the Shadows (Macdonald, 12s. 6d.) is a pleasant, competent, literate spy-thriller, set in London with a realistic newspaper office for background, and in Ghana. No point in giving details, since you can guess the kind of thing, and if you like the kind of thing, this is better than average; no sex.
Malcom Gair's thrillers have all been thrilling and good, and so is The Snow Job (Collins, 12s. 6d.) where his admirable private detective Mark Raeburn is engaged by a poor little rich boy to find out who murdered the old lady outside the superbly lush Swiss hotel. But I don't believe that even the most protected life could have fitted the murderer for his necessary feat.
A lot of underwater thrillers are coming along and we may expect many more. Charles Forsyte's Diving Death (Cassell, 13s. 6d.) is a good one and fairly clued, though needing a lot of under- water expertise to interpret them all correctly. The setting is the South of France, the gimmick underwater archaeology. One demur: would the scholar (p. 21) have said, 'Must be him'?
Ellis Peters's third novel, Funeral for Figaro (Crime Club, 12s. 6d.), is a nice neat profes- sional job, the gimmick being, as the title indi- Elizabeth Linington's Extra Kill (Oldbourne, the same stature as Proust or Thomas Mann.
another book about eminent counsel Sir an essential work. • ESTHER HOWARD
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