DEATH AND LETTERS

Gamadge, expert on old manuscripts and forgeries, to the rescue again with a routine involving more legwork than deduction at its start. A widow is being held incommunicado, threatened with commitment to a mental hospital, by her in-laws, and uses a clever trick to get a message across to Gamadge. How he affects her escape, and runs down the reasons for the procedure and its perpetrator makes holding reading, though in afterthought, the motivation seems unsound. Setting- N.Y.C. and environs.