21 NOVEMBER 1958, Page 68

Obsession. By Tom Gurr and H. H. Cox. (Mul- ler,

15s.) Precious little literary merit in this not very fictionalised reconstruction of the murder committed in New Zealand in 1954 by two intel- ligent and good-looking adolescent girls-the nearest thing for thirty years to the Loeb-Leopold classic. But it sticks close to the facts and the diary entries, which are horribly fascinating, and the book is clamorously readable in consequence.