February Mysteries

Of last month's 22, the following stood out as best bets:

SOME BURIED CAESAR -- Rex Stout--Farrar & Rinehart ($2). Attempted barbecue of a championship bull cooks the goose of two upState New Yorkers. Not expert-proof, but Nero Wolf's sleuthing and Archie Goodwin's cracks make it Rex Stout's best.

MURDER TO HOUNDS--Edward Acheson--Harcourt, Brace ($2). Murder in a neurotic fox-hunting Virginia family, combining an innocuous love story with the most engaging Englishman in recent crime fiction.

SOME DAY I'LL KILL You--Dana Chambers--Dial ($2). Murder and mayhem in the Connecticut countryside. Fast and witty, despite the somewhat Flash Gordon plot.

THE BIG SLEEP--Raymond Chandler--Knopf ($2). Detective Marlowe is plunged into a mess of murderers, thugs and psychopaths who make the characters of Dashiell Hammett and James Cain look like something out of Godey's Lady's Book.

THE CASE OF THE PERJURED PARROT--Erle Stanley Gardner -- Morrow ($2). The "testimony" of a profane pet parrot figures in the coroner's hearing on the murder of an eccentric millionaire. Standard Perry Mason, slightly frayed at the edges.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.