January Crime

DEATH AT THE HELM-- John Rhode--Dodd, Mead ($2). A yacht piles up on shore with a man and woman freshly dead of poison in the cockpit: she, the wife of a frozen-faced K.C.; he the son of a Purity Society officer. Inspector Jimmy Waghorn figures it all wrong until Dr. Priestley finally appears.

THE BISHOP'S CRIME--H. C. Bailey --Crime Club ($2). Without Reggie Fortune, Hon. Sidney Lomas and Superintendent Bell of the Yard would have got nowhere with the murders and surreptitious excavations in & around Badon Cathedral. Mr. Fortune's feats of pure reason are spectacular as ever.

MURDER OUT OF TURN--Frances & Richard Lockrldge--Stokes ($2). Pam & Jerry North entertain Bill Weigand of the New York police at their summer-colony cabin. A nice young girl and her cabin go up in flames. The whimsical Norths stand up nobly under liquor, kerosene, no sleep, the law.

DIAGNOSIS: MURDER -- Rufus King Crime Club ($2). Seven stories (one long) presenting Dr. Colin Starr, snappy young medico-criminologist. Starting from a gazebo hanging over Laurel Falls, Dr. Starr cleverly psychs his way about Ohio to the benefit of society at large.

MAIGRET TO THE RESCUE -- Georges Simenon -- Harcourt, Brace ($2). Another splendid brace of Inspector Maigret stories translated from the French. Frequent dollops of Pernod improve everyone's perceptions.

DR. THORNDYKE'S CRIME FILE--R. Austin Freeman -- Dodd, Mead ($2 50) Reprints of The Eye of Osiris, The Mystery of Angelina Frood, Mr. Pottermack's Oversight, full-length and always good. Also included is an excellent essay on the art of the detective story.

THE CASE OF THE SOLID KEY--Anthony Boucher--Simon & Schuster ($2). Evil deeds, some homicidal, in a Little Theatre group in Hollywood. Fergus O'Breen is a fairly amusing private detective, well up on his sodium fluoride. Quick and slick.

DEATH IN ECSTASY -- Ngaio Marsh --Sheridan House ($2). Sacred Flame Limited, a piece of religious quackery in London, harbors heroin sniffers, pansies a killer.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.