THE CRIMINAL RECORD

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31832, 9 November 1968, Page 4

THE CRIMINAL RECORD

Hie Second Red Dragon. By Conrad Voss Bark. Gollanez. 160 pp.

The author is a parliamentary correspondent and has used his knowledge of the Palace of Westminster and of procedure there to tell an exciting tale of a modem attempt to blow up the House of Lords on the occasion of the opening of Parliament by the Queen. George Hawkes, a psychopath obsessed by visions of fire and explosion, allies himself with a small and obscure sect, known as the Saviour Brethren, and uses them and their hell-fire preaching leader, Zebedee Crunch, as unwitting helpers in Ms dreadful plot Zebedee comes completely under George’s domination and is subjected to tortures until he becomes an automaton to all Intents. Mr Holmes, the head of the Prime Minister's security department, tipped off by the Dublin police that George Hawkes may be planning something In England, sets all security measures in train, and he calls on Sergeant Lune to join his team because Lune recognised a photograph of George when he was carrying out some investigations about the Saviour Brethren who were in Ms precinct George’s plotting and the counter measures of Holmes and Lune are drawn together in the vicinity of the House of Lords just before the arrival of the Queen. The scientific identification equipment used by the police is interestingly described; and the way in' which a desperate fanatic could, with a little luck, manage to elude precautions and get close enough to do murder appears horrifyingly possible.

Nick tbe Click. By G. K. Wilkinson. Cassell. 156 pp. Nicholas Privttt-Hodge was educated at Eton and Borstal and he absorbed the best traditions of both places. During the course of a business operation, involving the making of some pornographic photographs, he accidentally photographed a secret interview between an American girl and two petty thieves as she briefed them In their part in a large jewel robbery

which uproariously takes 1 place successfully in a shop! near Bond Street. Sad to say, | these petty thieves doublecross the girl and decamp with the loot Nicholas’s girl friend, and his model for his business photographs, is somewhat lame in the brain and through her Idle chatter manages to let the existence of the compromising photographs be known to Scotland Yard, to a reporter looking for a wonderful scoop for his paper, to the two thieves concerned in the robbery, and to the American girl thirsting for revenge and her highjacked diamonds. AU this is told in the most entertaining fashion and lead* to a headlong chase across France to Switzerland where all parties arrive for a Showdown. There is not a dull moment, and the book is written with the deftly light touch needed for the making of a souffle.

The Damsel. By Richard Stark. Hodder and Stoughton. 184 pp.

In a bedroom on the fifth floor of a Mexico City hotel, Alan Grofield lay in bed recovering from a gunshot wound in the back gained When stealing $60,000 now lying in a suitcase under his bed. He was surprised when a comely young girl came in through his bedroom window, and did not believe her story that she was escaping from an aunt who wanted to marry her to a wealthy man. She escaped through the window when gangsters appeared searching for her, and when she returned she told Grofield she urgently needed help in reaching Acapulco in order to save th* life of a dictator of Guerro, threatened by her father, an eminent physician, and his friend, an ex-Govem-or of the State of Pennsylvania. This unlikely tale was true, and Grofield and the girl, Ellen Fitzgerald, set off for Acapulco pursued by the gangster* employed to prevent them, from arriving there. It is a gloriously riproaring chase with all the atmosphere of high fiesta and suspended belief of a fastmoving musical comedy—for which it could make a splendid libretto—except that those gangsters were using real bullets and were shooting for keep*.

Secret Enquiry. By Belton Cobb. W. H. Allen. 176 PPDetective Sergeant Kitty Armstrong is given special duties under the direction of Inspector Bagshaw and is sent to stay incognito in a boarding-house in Rexington, a seaside resort which, unsurprisingly. attract* but few visitor*. Inspector Bagshaw gives her no information about the case upon which they are working, and Kitty

just has to wait with dull companions until a Mr Jones should come- to stay, “If,” as Stronganoff used to say,’ “he come!" Mr Cobb can be congratulated upon conveying to a reader the dullness of Rexington, of the boarding-house, and of its inhabitants. No character in die story appears clearly enough to rouse a reader’s interest; there is but little incident and the only murder we have takes place before the book opens; the solution arrives creakingly and offers little more than the rest of the book; and if Detective Sergeant Kitty Armstrong were to be put on traffic control and left there, this reviewer, for one, would be quite content

Take a Pair of Private Eye*. By J. T. Mclntosh (based on a television play by Peter O’Donnell). Muller. 173 pp.

The “private eyes” tn this promising title are Ambrose Frayne and his young French wife, Dominique, whose main business is the recovery of stolen property. Ambrose’s father, Hector, had been England’s most polished thief, and his son had inherited his talents as well as being coached from the depths of his experience. But th* boy elected to go straight The

jewel-encrusted golden top of Mineptah’s coffin, lent by the Egyptian Government for exhibition in London was guarded by security device* of the very latest kind, but it had attracted th* attention of one Feinster who had worked out a way to steal it His path crossed that of Ambrose and Dominique when they found a body in the course of their recovering a stolen necklace, and Feinster had killed the man. This body becomes peripatetie in amusing fashion, causing alarm and embarrassment to

one and all. It lands Ambrose and Dominique right in the middle of Feinster** plot which they must foil in order, among other things, to save the reputation of Hector's friend, Inspector Roth, who was in charge of security arrangements for the Mineptah coffin. It is all very fast moving and exceedingly funny, and the story is written with an insouciant grace.