Detection and Shock

Black Land White Land. By H. C. Bailey: (Gollanez. 78. 6d.) Death in the Flopfields. By John Rhode. (The Crime Club. 7s. 6d.) The Brothers Sackville. By G. D. H. and M. Cole. (The Crime Club. 7s. 6d.)

J for Jupiter. By Timothy Fuller. (The Crime Club. 7s. 6d.) The Third Eye. By Ethel Line White. (The Crime Club. 7s. 6d.)

IN the detective novel, as opposed to the psychological novel about murder, some degree of improbability is compatible

with great merit, provided that our suspension of disbelief be invoked, not on behalf of particular details—for these must hold water—but on behalf of the general aspect. For instance, no sensible reader will boggle at several connected crimes occurring in a short space of time, rarely though this happens in real life ; but a woman not recognising her husband's voice because he is wearing dark spectacles will be resented. Some writers of a poetic or fantastic turn of mind will cast an aspect of improbability over their whole scene. Chesterton was an extreme case of this ; his Father Brown and twisted trees and invisible postmen exist in a

different world from, say, the world of Mr. Crofts.. Mr. H. C. Bailey stands somewhat on the Crofts side of the halfway

line. His temperament is poetic ; the rich soil and the poor chalk of his new volume not only provide a literal battle- ground for his niatn characters, but also rouse emotions in his detective's breast ; and the General, whose passion for prehistoric research and the bones of alleged giants and dragons (" he was only hundreds of millions of years out in his facts and beautifully happy ") is a delightfully fantastic sketch of a bore who is never allowed to bore the reader. But despite his poetic temperament Mr. Bailey takes his

detection seriously ; he plays fair, his clues are nn the table. It is on motive that he is weak ; the initial murder, which occurred i.wele years 'before Black Land White Land begins, had no motive to speak of ; thus an elaborate and fascinating structure is reared on a shaky foundation. In a book so rich in entertainment as this, however, motive weakness is a minor objection. Black Land White Land is an immensely readable book. I don't suppose that anyone needs telling that the amateur detective, Reggie Fortune, has breeding, high education and Pre-War leisureliness' in common with

Lord Peter Wimsey ; but he is not, like Lord Peter, dated by antique slang, and indeed is not nearly so talkative. His taste for sweets is most, sympathetic ; but I must deplore his repeated use of the repellent locution " same hie." It is significant of Mr. Bailey's quality that I only noted one tiny inconsistency of the kind to be altered in a second edition : on page 10 Mr. Aston is given " a big pink face," which fits ill with the subsequent description of his haggard, ruinous good looks.

Mr. Rhode and the Coles belong at the Crofts end of the scale—they write the slightly laborious kind of story which tells you every time_a door is shut or a cigarette-case opened.

You are forced to read closely for fear of missing a clue, but the act of residing is not one of pure pleasure. It is good to be given the background, but neither the hopfields nor Mr. Rhode's police and yokels are all that exciting, and I found Death in the Hopfields heavy going. The noticeable thing about the -police-in this bobk is their sweetness to each other, but it does not make the book light. However, many people like their detective fiction solid, and Mr. Rhode is an honest writer, and produce§ good specimens of the type.

in The Brothers Sackville there is more excuse for piled-up detail, because_ its scheme entails the contrast between two

modes of life—in drab Brondesbury and prosperous Bir-

mingham. But even making that allowance, there is a lot of padding, including sentimental trimmings about Inspector Fairford's relations with his sister; and some character-

drawing which is too erode to justify itself intrinsically. But here, again, many people will enjoy settling down to a

long, solid, very 'complicated city banquet. A much more serious objection rests on a particular improbability which citnnof be specified without 'spoiling the show.

‘1. for Jupiter belongs to' the short,' high-speed class.

Jupiter, a Harvard undergraduate, finds a professor sitting stabbed at his 'desk. Various people have visited the pro- fessor during the critical time, and most of them are acquaintances of Jupiter's. Thus, with the rather unlikely partial sanction of the police, he plays a chief part in dis- covering the criminal. When a writer of a detective book is amusing, plays fair, and has a fairly simple plot, it is too much to ask that one should not be able to guess the villain. I guessed Mr. Fuller's almost the moment he was produced ; but this in no way interfered with my enjoyment of a delightful book. The writer's way of introducing informa- tion about Harvard, and his brief but perfectly clear description of the locale of the crime, should be taken as models by many of his craft.

The Third Eye is a shocker, not a detective novel. It begins promisingly, with the arrival at a girls' school of a new games mistress, hurriedly engaged to replace one who died suddenly in an odd manner. The dominating figure at the school is the matron, a large, mannish, boastful, unpleasant woman, with " county " connexions—a character extremely well observed and described M. action. She has some hold over the headmistress, but it is not the hold suggested by her exterior. One gets the impression that the author intended to use the Lesbian theme and then funked it—it turns out that the matron conducts bogus seances at which the headmistress's dead husband is supposed to " come through." I seem to have heard this before. Perhaps disappointment at the waste of unusually good introductory material made me hypercritical, but I did not find Caroline's adventures more than mildly exciting. Taken fast, however, as all shockers should be, The Third Eye will pass an evening