CATCH A FALLING CLOWN

Another 1940s case for narrator-shamus Toby Peters--who this time is south of L.A., in a little town where the touring Rose and Elder Circus has stopped: clown Emmett Kelly, you see, has hired Peters to figure out who's been electrocuting elephants and otherwise sabotaging the circus. Furthermore, right after Peters arrives, the sabotage escalates: one of the Flying Tanuccis falls fatally when his safety harness tears suspiciously. (The dead Tanucci's, wife also soon turns up dead.) So Peters sleuths away, though hampered by the vicious local cops; he goes undercover in clown makeup; he winds up in danger from a lion, a gorilla, and an elephant prod (wielded by a top suspect). And eventually, after much chatter with a snake-charmer and with film director Alfred Hitchcock (supposedly on the premises for circus-movie research), the motive and culprit are revealed--an implausible revenge scenario. Despite all the contrived derring-do: dull foolishness overall, for circus buffs only.