4 OCTOBER 1957, Page 46

The Rich Die Hard. By Beverley Nichols. (Hutchinson, I5s.) There

is a policeman who says —and the little dots are the author's—in my class of people, that word "mistress" . . . it sounds sort of . . . continental.' There is a Lord Richard with fair hair, very blue eyes 'with lines of laughter round them' who 'looked as though he would have been happier in rugger clothes.' But the mush doesn't become more than approxi- mately waist-deep till one reaches the allegedly civilised private detective who 'allowed himself nearly half a glass of Château Yquem with the trout.' The concept is sicklier even than Mr. Nichols's prose style.