The writer who doesn’t take himself too seriously is apt to go far in the detective-story racket. A capacity for poking good-natured fun at his characters, his plot, and the mystery story in general tends to make for books that are pleasant as well as baffling.

That’s one of the reasons why The Thing in the Brook, by Peter Storme, is so readable. Another reason is the fact that it contains a neatly contrived and properly gory murder; still another, the fact that Mr. Storme knows how to make his characters look and talk like recognizable human beings–a thing which is utterly beyond most of his brethren in this branch of literature.

Anyhow, The Thing in the Brook tells about a miserly farmer whom someone first throttles, then clubs over the head, then hangs from a tall tree. A bookish college professor finds the body, and a friend of his, a sedentary cotton converter from New York, comes down to do some amateur dabbling in crime detection. Somewhat to his own surprise, he solves the murder. It’s all very pleasant. (Bruce Cotton, New Books, March 28, 1937)

The Thing in the Brook was first published in 1937. Peter Storme was the pseudonym of Philip Van Doren Stern, better known for his historical nonfiction and the short story The Greatest Gift.

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