THE KILLER MINE

With none of the especial superiority of last year's Gale Warning, this is still a competently, substantially plotted story of high adventure, with the atmospheric assists of the forbidding, isolated Cornwall mining country. Jim Pryce, a deserter in Italy, is smuggled back to England where he is irretrievably involved with some fairly dangerous characters and occupations. Sent to see a Captain Manack who is opening up a valuable mine to the sea, Jim gets a line on the past and the mother he had never known, is able to solve the mystery of her death and the killer mine where three women had died, and finally- not without violence- escapes with Kitty, the servant girl he loves, back to Italy...The pace and pitch here are high and of particular appeal to a masculine market.