A RIPPLE OF MURDERS

A typical Wainwright killer--a good middle-class fellow driven over the edge by this cruel, cruel world and the decline of England in particular--demands to be paid ten thousand quid, or else he'll kill an innocent bystander at a certain time and place. No money--so he shoots a stranger as threatened. He repeats his demand, and this time the cops agree to pay, but plan to trick the killer at the handing-over-the-ransom stage; the trick goes awry, and the killer kills a cop. Repentant? Not he. ""I care not what the newsrags say: I am not an evil man!"" Wainwright then arranges what seems to be a fatal showdown between killer and cops, but no--we find out that the killer has actually escaped and is alive and well in Ireland. A morally repulsive ending for a barren book--really just a short-story idea padded with melodramatic vignettes of angry, vicious, or pathetic people. Foul.