12 JUNE 1959, page 36

Early-morning Feed

The father darts out on the stairs To listen to that keening In the upper room, for a change of note That signifies distress, to scotch disaster, The kettle humming in the room......

Ann Of The Law. By Michael Underwood. (hammond, 12s. 6d.)

Diamond robbery and a couple of murders involve some paper-thin characters who are whisked from London to Trinidad. All very improbable, but Michael Underwood can keep a story......

It's A Crime

Life Has No Price. By Desmond O'Neill. (Gol- lancz, 12s. 6d.) Surprising nobody has thought before of smuggling across the Eire-Ulster border as theme for a thriller : this is......

Extensive Beer

The Brewing Industry in England, 1700-1830. By Peter Mathias. (C.U.P., 85s.) IT is time to boast a little; time to blow one's own trumpet, for in this harsh and hard world no......

The Negro. By Simenon. (hamish Hamilton, 12s. 6d.) A Negro

is found dead by a halt- station in a dreary corner of north-eastern France, and the even drearier station-keeper thinks to turn a sou or so out of it by blackmail. A neat......

Reprieve. By John Resko. (mcgibbon And Kee, 18s.) Twenty...

before he was to go to the electric chair, having eaten his last supper, the young murderer John Resko was reprieved—to nineteen years in Dannemora, as long as Valjean did in......

Baker Street By-ways. By James Edward Hol- Royd. (allen And

Unwin, 15s.) Another of those spoof-scholarly excursions into Holmesiana by an author who not only lacks the wit and style of such precursors as Ronald Knox, but is arch enough......

The Eighth Circle. By Stanley Ellin. (boardman, 12s. 6d.)...

departure for the author of short, sharp novel, Dreadful Summit, and classic, grand - guignol short story, The Specialty of the house—a long, detailed, not very violent Ameri-......