CLASSIC CRIME

SPOTLIGHT by Patricia Wentworth (Hodder £8.99, 304 pp)

THE distinguishing feature of Miss Silver’s private detective career is that she keeps her distance until she is really needed.

Here, we are two-thirds through the book before Miss Silver is called upon to give the police a helping hand.

By then, a blackmailer is dead, while his victims, conveniently gathered together at the country home of their former tormentor, share the opportunity and the will to have delivered the fatal stabbing. With needles clicking (Miss Silver is forever turning out baby clothes for her family), while punctuating her acute observations with polite coughs, the indomitable investigator chips away at the evidence to get to the truth.

With her gift for spinning an intriguing story, leavened by a young romance, Wentworth never disappoints and often, as here, exceeds expectations.

A SNAPSHOT OF MURDER by Frances Brody (Little, Brown £8.99, 448 pp)

AS A World War I widow making her way in the world, Kate Shackleton has succeeded in the unlikely role of private detective. Her latest adventure has Kate taking time out to practice photography.

But, as every crime reader knows, a holiday can only be an excuse for the discovery of a dastardly deed. Here, it is the violent death of one of Kate’s party of camera carriers, who are in the yorkshire dales to record the public opening of the former home of Emily Bronte.

As jealousies and motives of revenge begin to emerge, Frances Brody skilfully plays on our emotions by signalling the likely guilt of the one person who attracts our sympathy.

Newcomers to this wellestablished series will enjoy earlier titles, too.

VANISH IN AN INSTANT by Margaret Millar (Pushkin Vertigo £8.99, 256 pp)

IT doESN’T get more noir than this. Margaret Millar touches the depths of despair camouflaged by America’s affluent society.

We are in the Midwest of the Fifties. Eric Meecham, a smalltown lawyer, is hired to lift an insufferably arrogant rich girl from the clutches of the police.

That she is suspected of having murdered her lover does nothing to dispel her sense of entitlement.

Under pressure to hand over to a high-powered advocate, Meecham lands a confession from a pathetic loner who is all too readily believed by the girl and her imperious, freespending mother.

Caught in a whirlwind of lies and deception, Meecham’s only protection is a lively wit and a sharp instinct for the truth.