18 MARCH 1960, Page 25

A Reasonable Doubt. By Julian Symons. (Cresset Press, 18s.) Also

has a chapter on the Harry Oakes murder, one of a baker's dozen of solved and. unsolved crimes, into which one of Our most talented and stylish mystery-makers ferrets, with an eye chiefly to the police-work.

He thinks that $teinie Morrison was condemned' against the weight of the evidence, and Edgar Lustgarten, though less explicit, also seems to have his doubts in his The Murder and the Trial (Odhams, 21s.), a delectable dozen of retold murder cases, but with the emphasis on duels of advocacy and coups of cross-examination in court.