A NOVEL ABOUT MURDER

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 261, 31 July 1937, Page 7 (Supplement)

A NOVEL ABOUT MURDER

“Death in the Deep South,” by Ward Green (Loudon: Cassell).

This is called a novel about murder. It is not. a murder mystery in the popular sense of the term, with a solution to a proldem In detection neatly appended at tiie end. It goes much deeper; it takes account of mob passions, of those unpredictable forces which, taking full advantage of tiie strange workings of tiie United States criminal law, go to the making of such notorious eases as those lending to the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti and of Hauptmann, the jailing of Mooney, and the trial of the Scottsboro boys.

The fictitious case of Mary Clay, as depicted in “Death in the Deep South,” is meat for strong stomachs. A pretty, 15-year-old girl is found murdered; public interest rises to fever-heat; a district attorney in desperate need of a successful prosecution to further his political career fastens on a likely suspect; weeks, later, when the spate of publicity has prejudiced prospective jurors ami subtly influenced the preconceived ideas of State witnesses, the suspect is brought to trial and found guilty. So the ease goes on to its desperate end, and the reader watches with a sickening fascination, much as a man powerless to aid might watch the slow coiling of a deadly snake about to strike a helpless victim. Mr. Greene writes in a style as inflexible as cold steel and without regard for the susceptibilities of the reader. Yet ho succeeds in presenting all the conflicting emotions aroused by the case, the callousness and cruelty of police ami Press, the despair of those convinced of the condemned mans innocence, the vieiousness of the interest displayed by the outside public. In its way it is an astonishing performance, a vivid illustration of the sociological effect of spectacular violence,