THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT

The erratic Mr. Sanders is at his tackiest here, hyping up this slow tale out of two borrowed, stale formulas. The plot formula is the old horror-movie one about the (secretly) mad scientist with the outwardly respectable laboratory-hospital in a scared, creepy little town. And the formula narrator-hero is our old friend, the hard-boiled detective, here in the uninspired person of Sam Todd, 32, field investigator for the Bingham Foundation—and weak imitator of Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer. Sam is assigned to get the inside story on Dr. T. G. Thorndecker, Nobel Prize winner, who wants a million-dollar Bingham grant to study the cause of aging in mammalian cells (or so he says). Thorndecker runs a lush rest home and adjoining research lab in upstate N.Y., so Sam is soon trying to get some gossip from the locals—who, except for old Al Coburn, have nothing but praise for dear Dr. T. And, though Sam's real suspicious, convinced that there are secrets a-lurking, he succumbs somewhat to Dr. T.'s incredible charisma—not to mention the charisma of the doc's sexy young wife (who's playing around with a local cop and others). But then Sam spots a patient being buried at midnight (yes, that old scene) and old Al Colburn turns up dead—so a late-night raid on the lab seems to be the only way to learn the truth. And as usual, the truth isn't shocking enough to warrant all that build-up; plus, in this case, it's medically unconvincing. Although Sanders pads like crazy—with Sam repeating his suspicions over and over, as well as with some divertingly vulgar sideshows—it's always apparent that this is a moderately lively genre pulp (far less fully developed than the author's Deadly Sin crime stories) masquerading as a best-seller. If not for the Sanders by-line, it wouldn't have a prayer.