Maxima Library

Dr. Paul Prye, who mode his effective first appearance in The Invisible Worm, continues to annoy people and catch murderers in this present opus. Dr. Prye was threatened by Joan, a hefty blonde of eighteen, with a quick demise in the bottom of the lake if he declared her insane, but it was Joan, not Dr. Prye, whom they fished out of the lake. Joan was just one of those people who from birth seemed destined to murder at the hands of most of her acquaintances.

One of the other lake shore residents was picked as the guilty party until he, too, made his exit from life via the lake. Miss Emily Bonner, the self-made arbiter of the social life of Lake Rosseau, lived behind her field glasses, so she contributed to Dr. Prye some odds and ends of irrelevant evidence of the domestic life of everyone concerned. Fundamentally Dr. Prye was a psychiatrist, and actually it was his knowledge that solved the case — not Miss Emily's long-distance snooping. To celebrate catching a murderer, he caught himself a domineering wife and had the last laugh on old Emily all at once.

This is a really grand mystery story with some very funny dialogue. All in all, a fine successor to The Invisible Worm.