GIDEON'S MONTH

Gideon's cycle of casework for the Yard this time includes some varied infractions: the murder of an underworld criminal whose widow is still too frightened to talk; a woman's maltreatment of a child which links in with the high incidence of children's crimes; a young bride's death, at the hands of her schizo husband; a missing child; the threat to a second wife by a husband whose first had died under suspicious circumstances; and a bluebearded housekeeper now revealed to be working on her twelfth victim in eight years. Gideon and the force solve all these cases in the allotted time and again turn in a blunt, businesslike performance.