CLASSIC CRIME

BARRY TURNER

SIR JOHN MAGILL’S LAST JOURNEY by Freeman Wills Crofts (Harper £7.99)

A wealthy Ulster businessman, living out his retirement in london, decides on a return trip to his native Belfast. But he never arrives. Somewhere, Sir John Magill disappears.

to unravel the mystery, Inspector French has to reconstruct the journey. Murder is established when a body is discovered in a shallow grave, but this serves only to raise more questions.

why was the elderly victim out at night on a lonely road? And what had happened to the plans he was carrying for revolutionising the manufacture of Irish linen?

Of all the golden age crime writers, Freeman wills Crofts is recognised as the master of plot construction. For those who are fascinated by convoluted puzzles, his novels remain highly readable.

MURDER ON THE PILGRIMS WAY by Julie Wassmer

(Constable £8.99) whAt with running an upmarket fish restaurant and a detective agency, Pearl Nolan has been overdoing it of late.

this is the opinion of her mother who, in a misguided fit of maternal generosity, arranges for the two of them to spend a sybaritic fortnight in a country hotel.

But there is a catch. the holiday turns out to be an extended cookery course run by an egotistical Italian chef who is anathema to Pearl. And if that is not bad enough, a murder is slotted into the programme.

Julie wassmer holds to the classic crime tradition of focusing on a closed community of suspects. But within the formula she rings the changes with snippets of culinary expertise and insider knowledge of rural pursuits, making the sudden descent to violence all the more shocking. A triedandtested crime recipe with whitstable flavours that makes for a Michelinstarred read.

THE JUDGE AND HIS HANGMAN by Friedrich Durrenmatt

(Pushkin Vertigo £4.99) INSPeCtOr BArlACh has not got much going for him except gritty determination.

terminally sick, he is set on solving one last case — the violent death of a fellow policeman on a mountain road where he had no business to be.

when his investigation threatens to break the closed circle of Swiss finance, Barlach finds himself up against an old enemy who is protected by wealth and friends in high places.

Best known as a dramatist, Durrenmatt is a disciplined writer whose talent for conveying spellbinding intensity depends on economy of language. the result is a short novel that will leave you gasping.