MURDER AND MYSTERY

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 71, 20 September 1930, Page 21

MURDER AND MYSTERY

THE LATEST THRILLS

Printing-presses continue to pour out an unceasing stream of murder and mystery .stories, and not yet is there any sign, of satiation on the part of the public. Something .quite novel and | stimulating is provided in "The Baffle Book," by I\ Tennyson Jesse (Heinemann). Here are- a couplo of dozen or so short mystery tales, and at the end of the-'book, printed upside down so as to prevent surreptitious glances, are the solutions. The idea is to treat the problems as a party game: a mystery is read aloud and the guests write down their solutions for subsequent comparison with that given in the book. The idea is quite a good one, but the mystery problems presented are of very unequal merit.

The second novelty is provided by "It Walks by Night." This is the tale of a murder in a Paris gambling house, the author being John Dickson'Carr, and the publishers Harper" and Brothers. The pages from 20S onwards are sealed. If the reader can get to page 20S and not want to read any further, he or she can return the book with the seal unbroken to the bookseller, who is authorised to return one's money. But of course when page 208 is reached one is so keyed up by the fantastic horror that has stalked through the- previous pages that the seal is broken and the solution" found..

; Other recent thrillers are "Murder at High Tide," by Charles G. Booth (Hodder and Stoughton), an island mystery; "M'Lean at the Golden Owl," by George Goodchild (Hodder and Stoughtor), a detective mystery of London; "The Tram Ticket Mystery,'' by C. K. Thompson (New "Century Press, N.Z.), a talo of murder in Australia; "The Yellow Mistletoe," by Walter S. Mastermau (Jarrolds), wherein a country parson walks down one of London's underground stairways to his death; "The Spider's Debt," by Johnston M'Cullcy (Hutchison), the tale of a super-crook and his machinations; "Spooky Eiders," by W. C. Tuttle (Collins), which concerns the murder of a millionaire in Los Angeles ad the disposal of a ranch; "The Viper," by Hulbcrt Footner (Collins), another niiirdered millionaire mystery, but a Parisian oue this time; and "The Person Called Z," by Jefferson Farjeon (Collins), a first-class mystery story coupled with humour. If tired of sham crooks and artificial detectives, turn to Major A. J. Dawson's "The Case Books of X 37" (Richards), which purport to bo authentic records of actual events and real peoplo, dealing with human abnormalities more interesting to the curious thau the standard types of criminals and sleuths.

At Sotheby's London, £2400 was paid by Sir. J. F. Drake, the New York bookseller, for the original autograph manuscript of Sir James M. Barries "Better Dead," 1887. Another Barrie manuscript was the complete "Bohemia," a comedy in three acts (1880), entirely unpublished and unrecorded., arid this fell to Mr. Scheuer, of Philadelphia, at £440. Mr. Walter Hill, of Chicago, paid £800 for the autograph manuscript of Kudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden," 48 linos in, all, with title at the head, and the author's full signature s& the foot.