HOW NOT TO WRITE A THRILLER

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33121, 11 January 1973, Page 9

HOW NOT TO WRITE A THRILLER

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright > MIAMI, January- 10-

Love is an unnecessarydiversion to the serious business of solving mysteries, the Cuban Government says, and it has told Cuban authors not to have their fictional sleuths involved in amorous affairs. The Government, which controls all publications on the Communist island, has issued a set of rules governing how mysteries must be solved. The butler could not have done it, neither could a look-alike relative of the suspect, according to the Ministry’ of the Interior’s committee on propaganda and culture in rules set

down for a writing contest. That is too easy. Furthermore, the crimes are not to be solved through decoding, word associations, truth serum, seances, comparisons of cigarette butts, or victim’s dogs that do not bark, and reveal the culprit in the process.

The rules require the villains to be caught only through a series of deductions. never by accident; the police are never to be portrayed as anything other than brilliant; and the works are to be of “an instructive nature, and a stimulus to the prevention, and vigilance of, activities that are antisocial or against the power of the people.”