Clinical Cases

THE CUNNING MULATTO AND OTHER CASES or ELLIS PARKER, AMERICAN DETECTIVE--Fletcher Pratt--Smith & Haas ($2.50).

For 42 years Ellis Parker, round, short, grey-haired and good-natured, has been a practicing detective in Mount Holly, N. J. (pop. 6,573). He has worked on about 300 cases, principally crimes of violence. According to Fletcher Pratt, "he is probably the best detective in America if not in the world." Last week Author Pratt, heretofore recognized as a historian (Ordeal by Fire), offered a volume containing accounts of twelve of Ellis Parker's more sensational successes. Less a batch of detective stories than a collection of analyses of human behavior in moments of crisis, The Cunning Mulatto is obviously modeled on the tales of Sherlock Holmes, with Author Pratt in the role of Dr. Watson asking intelligent leading questions. Although he tells little of his personal life, Detective Parker began trapping criminals because of his anger when his horse & buggy were stolen. Believing that people in times of stress act according to a few readily recognizable patterns, he was seldom led astray by strange but meaningless combinations of circumstances developed after a deed of violence. Some cases:

P:Bradway Brown, supposedly murdered for revenge or blackmail, was killed by robbers who were traced when Detective Parker noted that similar robberies were following the main highways.

P: Louis Lively, mulatto brush-maker who had the habit of cutting little girls' throats, was trapped when Detective Parker noted that Lively always used the same type of false tips to mislead police.

P: David Paul. Camden, N. J. bank messenger, disappeared with $40.000, was thought to have run away until his lack of preparation for flight seemed suspicious. Detective Parker found that Paul was murdered by old cronies whose crime was almost perfect.

P: The man who killed John Brunen, circus-owner, to get his business was suspected by Psychologist Parker because his alibi was so good. Innocent people usually do not remember exactly wrhat they did on the night of a crime.

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