CRIME IN THE AIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 46, 23 February 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

CRIME IN THE AIR.

A PSYCHOLOGIST'S STORY.

Mr. C. Daly King lias made a place of his own in the world of crime stories. A lecturer ami writer on psychology, lie brings professional psychologists into Ins stories, and with remarkable skill weaver their theories (including some intriguing jargon) into his. plots. In "Obelists Ln Route" he made rare fun of some of their fads and fancies. In "Obelists Fly High" (Collins), he stages crime and psychology in the air. A celebrated surgeon has to travel by air from New York to Reno on a mission of natioluil importance. Before he sets out lie is warned that lie will die at a certain hour. To protect him the authorities detail Captain Michael Lord, a solver of earlier mysteries, and Lord decides to travel with him (and other passengers), and to take the most elaborate precautions. Yet, at the stated hour, up in the air, the doctor collapses. Action and investigation are fast and furious until the highly dramatic end of the journey. The vivid descriptions of the long air journey, including a very narrow esc-apc from disaster, give the story an unusual interest, and an extraordinary mystery is superimposed upon this. Mr." King makes a considerable demand on tile intellectual equipment of his readers, and rewards them at the end with more than one profound surprise. The weakness of the story lies in two items, neither of which can be revealed without giving away the plot. Suffice it to say that the ultimate precaution taken by Lord seems highly improbable, and that no man of his experience would have been deceived by what he saw in the luggage carrier of the aeroplane somewhere about page 14U.