Murder on the Matterhorn, by Glyn Carr. 244 pages. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, Inc., 1953. Price, $2.50.

The literature of mountaineering is replete with chronicles, biographies, histories, and statistics of accomplishment among the high regions of the world. Occasionally the searching eye will detect a little fictional drama within the great ranges, but only rarely do we find the mountains chosen as the setting for a murder mystery. If we do chance on such a rarity, we are apt to discover exaggerations, distortions of topography and of practice, and situations that offend the sensibilities of the mountaineer.

It is refreshing, then, to sit back of an evening and read Murder on the Matterhorn, whose author, Glyn Carr, has concocted a plot that will keep the “whodunit” enthusiast and eclectic mountain reader engrossed from cover to cover. Not only does the author spin a strong web of intrigue, but he writes engagingly and, best of all, he brings to the text an intimacy with the Zermatt district and with mountaineering practices that leaves no doubt of his competence as an experienced and enthusiastic mountaineer. Murder on the Matterhorn sets a standard that fiction writers who use the mountains as a setting would do well to follow.

Walter A. Wood