Slippery Staircase

E. C. R. LORAC has excelled in Slippery Staircase, a novel to which the Crime Club, in ''selecting'' it, would Iike to draw the special attention of all detective-story connoisseurs. The setting is an old and eerie London house, now converted to flats. In the basement Iives the houseman; on the ground floor Martia Vannery; on the second floor a wealthy retired actor; on the third floor Mrs. Thelma Romney, a widow; on the fourth floor two young men interested in flying; and in the attic flat at the top of the house old Miss Fanny Seeley, Iiving alone and Ionely, on her modest annuity. It is on the staircase that winds up the old house, Iinking these people's Iives together, that Murder takes place. The atmosphere throughout the book is electrically tense; the description of the terrified Juliet Romney creeping down the stairs after the murder is Iiable to make anybody's blood run cold; and as to the detection, it represents Inspector Macdonald's greatest triumph.