It's a Crime
The Case of the Spurious Spinster, by Erle Stanley Gardner (Heinemann, 18s.). The inde- fatigable Perry Mason is briefed by an attrac- tive secretary to the manager of a mining concern to defend her on charges of misappro- priation of funds and murder. A hot number for Mason, but inevitably he triumphs, as usual. Not one of Gardner's best. Cliché-bespattered and with severe plot discrepancies, but nevertheless readable, intricate and doubtless satisfying to Perry Mason fans. The Evil That Men Do, by Hugh Pentecost (Boardman, 16s.). Playboys and girls congregate in a New York luxury hotel to laze, while away the time and ultimately to become associated in murder and dishonour, much to the hotel manager's concern and con- sternation. Mr Pentecost writes very penetra- tively, with assurance and zest. His characterisa- tion is first-rate with plot-evolution exceedingly perspicacious. A stimulating and absorbing story.
Third Girl, by Agatha Christie (Collins, 18s.). Agatha Christie very much on form. Hercule Poirot, established tec, is mystified by the actions of a young girl who informs him she may have committed a murder, and then disappears. Poirot, intrigued, sets out to trace the girl and possible victim and becomes entangled in 'with-it' London life before solving the mystery in his own inimitable fashion. Classic AC style, but right up-to-the-minute in subject, idiom and `alive' characters, with an exciting denouement in the closing stages.
Murder Has No Friends, by Bradshaw Jones (John Long, 15s.). Bradshaw Jones has devised a very fast-moving thriller about the murders of three nude women in London and describes in semi-documentary manner how the police thoroughly and painstakingly track down and capture the killer in the remote barrenness of the Welsh moors. Lively, suspenseful and well- propounded and executed. The Busy Body, by Donald E. Westlake (Boardman, 16s.). An in- genious farcical gangster 'crime' story set in America, in which The Organisation's purpose
half a million dollars' worth of heroin. The is to find a corpse wearing. a suit lined with
sleuthing implicates Al Engels, the seeker, in unanticipated situations and adventures, and the whole affair, conducted at a brisk tempo, is fluent, whimsical and very easily assimilated.
The Double Agent, by John Bingham (Gollancz, 21s.). In this cold-war spy story, the writing is infinitely more inspired than the plot- formation. The spy is a blunt, fatalistic York- shireman incarcerated in Moscow and subjected to alternate hot and cold brainwashings by Soviet security boys to reveal highly important secrets. Purposeful, proficient and polished, but are not the days of the highly-charged Iron Curtain spy story over? MAURICE PRIOR
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