Spineless Heroine

Two FLIGHTS UP--Mary Roberts Rine-hart--Doubleday Doran ($2.) Connoisseurs of mystery stories--a great many of both have cropped up in the last decade --prefer them undiluted with the tender passion. Though Author Rinehart knows how to write a mystery story (The Amazing Interlude, The Red Lamp), and her sons* know how to publish them, she indulges in dilution to the extent of a new volume self-labelled "a love story--with just enough mystery." Mystery connoisseurs will be disappointed. Love-storyites will find in Holly a spineless heroine, in Warrington a blundering hero in spite of his burly good looks, and in Furness Brooks (he paid dinner calls) an unbelievable relic of the days before jazz.

*Three Rinehart sons are at Doubleday Doran.