CRIMINALS AND SPIES

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 4

CRIMINALS AND SPIES

In Loving Memory. By Emma Page. Collins Crime Club. 256 pp. The plot follows a familiar pattern but does so in pleasantly readable fashion. Mr Mallinson, an elderly and wealthy man, had a slight heart attack and asked his physician and friend. Dr Burnett, to summon his eldest son from whom he had been estranged. He then announced to his younger son, who was managing his large chain of motor garages, to his son’s wife, to his nurse, and to his secretary that he intended to alter his will. It would appear that this is a highly dangerous thing for rich old men to do, and, sure enough, each of the aforesaid people had urgent need of the legacies coming to them under the old will or the new. Mr Mallinson was therefore a poor insurance risk, and no reader need be surprised when he is poisoned. Inspector Ingram arrived to make enquiries, and found that the matter was further complicated by a blackmailing young blackguard whose mistress young Mrs Maliinson . had been, and by the old man's godson who had fallen into arrears over payments for a dearly loved motorcycle. Ingram solved many aspects of the case quickly. Had he not done so ■ with speed the story would have been far too long. Nevertheless, he did not guess at the solution which the author had hidden away. The reader, however, should do so. Death of a Dude. By Rex Stout. Collins Crime Club. 192 pp. This is a Nero Wolfe novel and will be enjoyed by those who have met him many times before. There is a difference in this one in that Nero Wolfe leaves his secluded New York apartment and travels out to the wilds of Montana to help his assistant, Archie Goodwin, who has been trying to solve a murder there without very much success. A man named Philip Brodell had been shot and Harvey Greve, the father of a girl whom Brodell had seduced, had been arrested for the murder. Goodwin did not think that Greve was guilty and had set out to clear him. Haight, the local sheriff, resented Goodwin’s attempt to upset what looked like a clear and simple case, and was very hostile when Nero Wolfe appeared. Haight was able to arrest Goodwin when another murder was committed and this further complicated Wolfe’s task. Unperturbed as ever, he went ahead, calling on high people in the government to clear official channels for him, enjoying some unexpectedly good local cooking and introducing the inhabitants to some of his own dishes, and generally enjoying the life of Lame Horse, Montana. And, of course, Nero Wolfe solves the mystery by his own smooth methods and leaves everything tidier than before. Young Man I Think You’re Dying. By Joan Fleming. Collins Crime Club. 192 pp. In Winston Sledge Joan Fleming has given us a credible picture of a young man who acknowledges no sanctions in his conduct, has no affection for his parents (nor have they any for him), and who uses other people without the slightest regard for their welfare. He is a brute whose terrible end is foreshadowed in all that he does and is. He strangles an old lady whose flat he is robbing, and involves young Joe Bogey as an accessory to murder because he has employed Joe to drive his car and to act as look-out Joe is horrified and becomes further involved with Sledge because he helps, a young girl who has run away from home and has been meanly treated by Sledge. The efforts of these two to escape being pulled into the inevitable whirlpool towards which Sledge is heading is the major interest in a macabre but fascinating tale. Sledge’s first murder soon leads on to a second when he hurls an Indian girl, aged 14, who has been his mistress and a prostitute on whose earnings he lives, from the seventeenth floor of a block of flats where he lives. His mind is now hornicidally centred and is turned against Joe and the girl, Frances Smith. They are helped by Joe’s crippled father and his magnificent Irish mother. But it is hard to escape complete ruthlessness and that is what they face until it all backlashes upon Sledge himself in a horrible way. The book is most ably written. Run Down. By Robert Garrett. Michael Joseph. 183 pp. This is Robert Garrett’s first novel, and his hero, Alan Brett, will prove to be popular and should appear in many another. Brett is a very tough young man, fortunately working for law and order under the direction of Caxton, of Scotland Yard, although Brett is not a policeman. Brett’s methods of investigation would be frowned upon by High Court Judges. He also helps O’Neil, a secret agent type who has high connections in both the Home and the Foreign Offices, and is less restricted in what he may and may not do to others. Brett is charged with breaking up a criminal organisation known as “The System” which is running a nasty protection racket, doing a lot of drug smuggling, and generally acting contrary to the common weal. Brett destroys the members of “The System” by killing three of the leaders and some of the underlings and grievously injuring others. Brett is a bad man to cross and it is better to be on his side. The top man of “The System, however, is not scotched so easily ana it is some time before he is destroyed. The author keeps up a cracking pace throughout the book; and although some of the situations are bizarre, who is to say that they are impossible in an age such as this?