THE BACKWARD REVIEWER
William F. Deeck


CARTER DICKSON – He Wouldn’t Kill Patience. William Morrow, hardcover, 1944. Paperback reprints include: Dell #370, mapback edition, 1950; Berkley X1339, 1966; IPL, 1988.

   The Royal Albert Zoological Gardens is an unlikely place to find Sir Henry Merrivale. He loathes snakes, but he is at the zoo to observe how they are milked for their venom. When an angry magician breaks open two glass cages, unleashing a tropical American lizard, large size, and a Gila monster, not too small, H.M. becomes the creatures’ target.

   That’s not the least of H.M.’s problems. He comes to dine with an old friend only w discover that the friend has died of coal gas inhalation within a locked room. Though he is convinced that it was murder, how can H.M. explain not only the locked room, but the fact that paper strips have been glued to all the openings from inside the room? Furthermore. H.M. isn’t through with the snakes, who play more than one role in the investigation.

   First-class Dickson.

— Reprinted from MYSTERY READERS JOURNAL, Vol. 6, No. 4, Winter 1990, “Beastly Murders.”