23 MARCH 1956, Page 23

DEATH IN RETIREMENT. By Josephine Bell. (Methuen, 12s. 6d.) There

is a compelling ordinariness about Josephine Bell's places and people, and this time murder arises out of who's going to look after aunty when Gillian gets married? The murder itself is a little complicated, perhaps, for so English a village, but by the time it happens—half-way through the book—the critical senses are dulled, by what must surely be a deliberately pedestrian style, into amiable acquiescence.