MAIGRET KEEPS A RENDEZVOUS—Georges Simenon—Harcourt ($2). Two first-class exploits of phlegmatic French Detective Maigret: One is the case of a Breton sea captain, slain after a frenzied voyage, which Maigret closes on an extra-legal note; the other a rural tragedy, involving the death of an elderly countess by induced shock. Translation not so smooth as earlier Simenon but both tales have brilliant workmanship.
SEEING IS BELIEVING—Carter Dickson —Morrow ($2). At an English party, Vicky Fane, under a hypnotic spell, is forced to stab her husband with a rubber dagger—which changes to steel as she drives it home. Irascible Sir Henry Merrivale, interrupting the dictation of his libelous memoirs, supplies a transparently simple solution to an apparently insoluble problem. Good mental exercise and robustly amusing.
AWAKE DEBORAH—Eden Phillpotts—Macmillan ($2.50). Long golden hair woven into a Dartmoor heath lark’s nest is the first clue to murder that stirs an English botanist out of his dignified ease and sadly perplexes Scotland Yard. Lengthy, but impressive story in the grand English tradition.
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