BRED IN THE BONEEden PhillpottsMacmillan ($2).
As far and few as the Jumblies' habitat are detective stories about human beings. Writers of detectifiction are not usually able characterizers, and vice versa; it is too hard to do, gives unnecessarily much for the money. Oldster Eden Phillpotts has made a sturdy attempt. With an old-fashioned dignity and dialectal fidelity reminiscent of the late great Thomas Hardy, he tells a gruesome tale that may remind more than one reader of its prototype, Macbeth. Character is Destiny, Author Phillpotts believes. On this text he is...