DEATHS AND DISAPPEARANCES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 777, 11 June 1954, Page 14

DEATHS AND DISAPPEARANCES

THE COATINE CASE, by A. J. Colton; Robert Hale, English price 9/6. ANNA, WHERE ARE YOU? by Patricia Wentworth; Hodder and Stoughton, English price 10/6. LADY LOST, by Desmond Cory; Shakespeare Head. THE WISHFUL THINK, by Bernard Newman; Robert Hale, English price 9/6. THE TOFF AT BUTLIN’S, by John Creasey; Hodder and Stoughton, English price 7/3. A CONFIDENCE trick is the basis of The Coatine Case, by an Australian professor who writes under the name of A. J. Colton. This detective story, refreshingly new in scene and treatment, is another sign that Australia is building up a literature of her own in this genre. A young Australian aviator is drawn into the net, and a murder taxes all the ingenuity of the police, whose disposition and methods you may amuse yourself by comparing with those of Scotland Yard. The young man displays remarkable powers of deduction and observation, but would so smart a chap have been deceived in the first instance? No detective story writer maintains a more uniform level than Patricia Wentworth, and Anna, Where -Are You? showing Miss Silver again in ‘action, is one of her best. The story is tense, with real surprises at the end, and the psychological condition that causes Anna

to disappear is deep and startling-and, sad to say, paralleled in real life. In Desmond Cory’s previous story his amateur detective was living openly with a mistress in Oxford, and no one seemed to mind. In Lady Lost he is about to marry her, but his mvolvment in a thriller hunt for criminals causes her to back out on the ground that he seems to prefer corpses to matrimony. Perhaps the wedding bells will ring in the next instalment. That the book opens with the detective getting out of bed in the morning fully dressed and with a bad hangover after a party, makes me fear that Raymond Chandler may be influencing his English rivals. There is plenty of excitement here, but the plot is absurd, and Desmond Cory’s undeniable wit is persistently smeared with vulgarity. Bernard Newman has ‘Stalin’s. successor, Mr. Malenkov, die in hospital, and describes the complications that follow the seizure of power by an almost unknown man, The basis of the story is the power of a young Englishman to read from London the thoughts of the new Russian ruler, and the use made of this. by the British Government. Including Sir Winston Churchill and Mr. Eden, living personages are introduced. The telepathic idea is ingenious, but the working out is prolonged and dull. It is questionable whether, in the public interest, such a book should be written. The Toff at Butlin’s is the third "Toff" story I have read, and the worst.

There are incredible happenings in @ permanent holiday "camp" in Wales. I wish the "Toff" would get married and stop casting a roving, though I must admit, an ultimately innocent eye, over the face and figure of every personable

young woman he meets.

A.

M.