16 JANUARY 1959, Page 24

Singing in the Shrouds. By Ngaio Marsh. (Col- lins, 12s.

6d.) One of those old-fashioned and highly artificial closed-circle mysteries: of the nine passengers in the ocean liner one is a mur- derer who goes in for bizarre killings, one every ten days, complete with flowers on the corpse, and other symbolic trimmings. Inspector Roderick Alleyn, well below form, sorts it out in the end.