THE CUDGEL

The Great Smokes provide a backdrop for murder, in which a hated daughter-in-law is removed from a united family circle by violence. The family attempts to shift the blame to a visiting discarded suitor of their daughter, but his aunt comes to his defense, accur most of the evidence, and with the backing of the doctor -- coroner- friend of the family, takes the jump on local investigators, and brings the killer to book. Good enough reading, but the stock suspects are there, an alcoholic invalid woman, a domineering old grandmother who holds the purstrings, an unhappy husband of the tramp who meets her just and the bachelor uncle whose proneness to the family ""black rage"" has been concealed despite another violent death. There's presumably a happy end to a frustrated romance- and the killer succeeds in escaping by suicide.