STRANGE STORY
By
A queer story, with something of the Francis Iles' quality, as the making of a crime is constructed before the reader's eyes. An unusual psychological study of twins is involved:- Rose, the staid and brittle one, unable to break through her icy restraint and distaste; Lil, giddy and shallow and pleasure-loving, less dependent on Rose than Rose on her. Then Lil marries Ron, the man Rose thought she hated, and Lil becomes a slattern, quarrelsome, debauched, until she boasts once too often of getting her small son drunk, and Rose strikes -- and accidentally kills her. The balance of the story follows the involutions and convolutions as Rose tries to escape the results of her deed, only to find herself enmeshed in lies-and Ron charged- and convicted- for the crime. At the close, the old eye for an eye philosophy of eternal punishment works out as Rose has to sell herself to the man who could smash her alibi. An unpleasant story- well done.