Hush, It's a Game

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Long popular in Australia, Carlon was recently brought to U.S. attention with Soho's reissue of six of her fine psychodramas (The Price of an Orphan; The Whispering Wall, etc.). This seventh reissue, originally published in 1967, hits a rare false note. Lacking the suspense and compelling moral dilemmas of Carlon's stronger offerings, the novel opens with ex-con Frank Aldan killing his former girlfriend, Isobel Tarks, shortly after his release from prison. What Aldan doesn't realize until after he has left Isobel's apartment is that she was babysitting a six-year-old neighbor girl, Virginia, at the time. Virginia, whose father had gone away on a business trip, leaving her with Isobel for several days, was locked in the kitchen when the woman was shot to death. It's Christmas Eve, and Virginia can't get out. All she can see through the keyhole are Isobel's legs. Can she free herself before Aldan figures out that she is a witness and returns to finish her off? Will a group of concerned neighbors manage to discover Virginia's predicament and rescue her? Despite a clever, ironic ending, the novel is unexceptional. Young Virginia's quandary never comes across as all that dire--after all, she's trapped in a well-stocked kitchen, not a dark, cold cellar. And Aldan, a small-time crook, simply doesn't come across as a potential killer of small children. Still, the story shows some flashes of the quirky characterizations and nail-biting tension of Carlon's best work. (Feb.) FYI: Hush, It's a Game is published in conjunction with a paperback reprint of Unquiet Night. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Originally published in Australia in 1971, this eighth Carlon title to be published by Soho Crime is a departure from the psychological suspense for which the author (Hush, It's a Game, The Unquiet Night) is known. This is a classic whodunit, as exemplified by protagonist Jefferson Shields, a man who deals in puzzles and problems. When a student demonstration protesting the jailing of a conscientious objector turns violent and leaves a young woman dead, the case stymies police, and Shields finds it far more complex than it first seems. A straightforward student action is found to have far-reaching tentacles, involving bribery, arson, and thievery, with murder almost a footnote, as Shields sums it all up at the end. More Agatha Christie than Ruth Rendell, this approach still wears well after 30 years. A solid choice for mystery collections. Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Back in 1970, when this tale first appeared, political demonstrations were common, and so were the problems that followed in their wake: strikes, fires, looting. But when the crowds receded, they rarely left murder victims behind. Certain that university student Robyn Calder was killed during a demonstration on behalf of jailed conscientious-objector Oliver Harrap, Robyn's friends prevail on private eye Jefferson Shields to look into her death. The iron bar that killed her has disappeared, even though four separate witnesses said they saw Robyn with just such a bar. No way, swears Nigel Detrick, Harrap's friend who organized the demonstration; not one demonstrator was carrying a weapon. In that case, though, why does a photograph of Robyn snapped only a few minutes before her death show her wielding the weapon-and why, come to think of it, did the photographer just happen to get a clear picture of the one demonstrator who was about to become a casualty? Pursuing the scant leads from the Thought Club, which lends its expertise to organizing political rallies, back to his own office, Shields comes up with as neat and disturbing an answer to these riddles as you could wish. Her latest blast from the past to be published in the US shows Australian Carlon taking a holiday from her trademark tales of terror (Hush, It's a Game, 2001, etc.) to produce a vintage whodunit, complete with red herrings, an impossible crime, and a neatly turned solution.