Pass the Salt

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 310, 1 June 1945, Page 9

Pass the Salt

"DINNER WITH A NOVELIST," a BBC production heard from 4YA, was so much above the average radio thriller that any more plays by L. A. G. Strong will find me among the audience. It is not usually possible in so short a time to have plot plus characterisation, but here we have an excellent plot and @ cast so neatly drawn that they become people instead of puppets, The novelist himself, coolly talking shop while he watches*his victim eating a poisoned meal in,a famous restaurant; the victim, who has our entire sympathy even while we deplore his hypocrisy, his oily voice; the hard-boiled Scots detective, the

toadying secretary, the belligerent frightened doctor, are all chatacters worthy of being depieted on a larger canvas. The plot too is dexterous, but it did seem incredible that, having murdered his victim by means of poison in the saltcellar, the villain should have committed so obvious an error as to leave the salt-cellar on a table in the restaurant, where it was later the means of. poisoning ‘Various innocents; however, had he not done so, we doubt if the police could ever have pinned it on to him, in which place there would have been no excuse for the radio play either. It is also doubtful whether any really famous sleuths such as Wimsey, Poirot, or Alleyn would have considered the case sufficiently advanced to go to a jury at the point where the play finished; the dour Scot says, "We'll get him!", but the reader is left with an unanswered query, "How?" :