INCIDENTAL MURDERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 870, 6 April 1956, Page 13

INCIDENTAL MURDERS

THE BECKONING LADY, by Margery Allingham; Chatto and _ Windus, Eng@lish price 11/6. MURDER AMID PROOFS, by Majorie Bremner; Hodder and Stoughton, English price 10/6. THE DARBY TRIAL, by Richard Elmo Pearce; Hodder and Stoughton, English price 12/6. THE SECRET MOUNTAINS, by John Appleby; Hodder and Stoughton, English price 10/6. DISCORD IN THE AIR, by E. H. Clem ents; Hodder and Stoughton, English_ price 10/6. YOU’VE ‘GOT IT COMING, by James Hadley Chase; Robert Hale, English price 10/6. WHAT has happened to our trusty , and well-beloved Margery Allingham, Dame of the Order of You Can’t Put It Down? The Tiger in the Smoke was a good novel as well as a fine crime story. In The Beckoning Lady an excessof characters move about a charming English countryside in a half-dream. They float out of the mist and back again, perhaps not identified satisfactorily, and talk discursively about things as diverse as art and the curious ways of English taxation with couples married, divorced, or living in sin, till the reader may wonder if this is a summer school, and begins to tap his trammelled foot with impatience. This taxation business, you will be surprised to learn, is part of the plot. Yes, there are bodies. Albert Campion helps to dispel the fog. Of course, the story has merit — Margery Allingham could not be dull for long if she tried-but style, erudition, charm, and diversity of creatures do not excuse the book’s lack of form. You must have noticed that murder is much more of an intruder in some murder stories than in others. Maiorie Bremner, whom we met in Murder Most Familiar, gives us, in Murder Amid Proofs, an excellent story about the staff of a London literary weekly. The picture of this kind of journalism-policy and technique, personal ambitions, preferences and vanities-will have a special appeal to readers of real journals. Majorie Bremner, an American living in London, writes for at least one. So why drag in two murders that are exceptionally revolting in their cold-bloodedness, and incredible? You may be able to tolerate these in the liveliness of the literary scene. : : The Darby Trial, by Richard Elmo Pearce, is a tense hard-tack story of a case in San Francisco against a very clever man who has been running a religious movement as a cover for Communism. The F.B.I. is behind the young prosecuting attorney, and the Communists fight every inch, outside the court as well as inside. Communist methods and the jockeying for power within the

party is revealed, and the immense amount of official counter-work extending over half the world. The court scenes are impressive. These last two writers are journalists. So is John Appleby, author of The Secret Mountains, and Miss E. H. Clements, of Discord in the Air, is married to one. Very few writers depend solely on their books. I would not rank The Secret Mountains as high as Venice Preserve Me, but it is an exciting tale, with a smashing surprise at the end. Chair-lift introduced me agreeably to Miss Clements, and I find Discord in the Air equally satisfactory. In an English village there is a clash between noise of aeroplane testing and local devotion to music, and when someone is murdered (continued on next page)

BOOKS

(continued from previous page) this passion is suspect. Miss Clements flavours the mystery with odd characters and a lively style. I thought James Hadley Chase’s previous thriller less murky, but You've Got it Coming is a horrible recital of gangsterism-idiotic as well as vileand irregular and errant love. An open

port-hole would be inviting.

A.

M.