Mysteries in November

THE LADY IN THE LAKE--Raymond Chandler--Knopf ($2). Mr. Marlowe, forthright and uninhibited California shamus (private detective), is hired to trace the missing wife of a perfume manufacturer, encounters three murders, trades punches with the police, and finally drives a tragic and cunningly concealed killer to his death. An astringent, hardbitten, expertly constructed and convincingly characterized story of the just-tough-enough school.

LOOK YOUR LAST -- John Stephen Strange--Crime Club ($2). The murder of an obscure little man in a Manhattan lodging house develops into an affair with international ramifications, all followed to their surprising end by sharp-eyed and nimble-witted News Photographer Gantt.

A shrewdly plotted blend of detection and intrigue, and a thick cut above the average mystery yarn in content and writing.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN -- Mignon G.

Eberhart--Random House ($2). A series of murders near a Florida Army camp spells trouble for pretty, young Vicky Steane. But an Army-officer detective puts a stop to the frame-up of Miss Steane, and brings an intricately plotted and turbulent tale to a clinch conclusion that will satisfy readers who like their romance and mystery adroitly mixed.

TALES OF TERROR--Edited by Boris Karloff--World Publishing Co. (49-c-).

An exceptionally well-chosen omnibus of short spine-tinglers, with an urbane and knowledgeable introductory essay by Mr.

Karloff. The book includes a few old standbys, but for literate shivers such tales as Helen Hull's Clay-Shuttered Doors and Oliver Onions' brilliant The Beckoning Fair One make the collection well worth reading.

THE THURSDAY TURKEY MURDERS--Craig Rice--Simon & Schuster ($2).

"Bingo" Riggs and "Handsome" Kusak, peripatetic photographers, stop in an Iowa village on their way to Hollywood, are properly hornswoggled over a flock of turkeys, get dangerously involved in several murders and a hidden hoard of stolen gold pieces. A local sheriff does the major sleuthing. No deductive masterpiece but well stocked with action, odd characters and merriment.

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