Design In Evil

by Rufus King

"In our opinion the best thing that Rufus King has ever written." -- The New York Times Miriam Lake found herself in an alarming situation the night she came aboard the luxury yacht "Donna Louise" for an interview with a "Mrs. Murchison" who was seeking a governess for a backwards child. First, Mrs. Murchison turned out to be a man -- Donald Murchison. Then, Miriam learned that everyone on board believed her to be Murchison's long-lost niece and a victim of schizophrenia, causing her to adopt a strange new personality. By the time Miriam realized it was no honest mistake in identity, and that murder was part of the evil design, the yacht was heading out to sea! A tense novel in which Rufus King is at his scintilating best!

Paperback

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Rufus King was an American author of Whodunit crime novels. He created two series of detective stories: the first one with Reginald De Puyster, a sophisticated detective similar to Philo Vance, and the second one with his more famous character, the Lieutenant Valcour.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable standalone but not this undervalued writer at his best.

Very atmospheric with an excellent first half. King writes well about the sea and life on board a luxury boat.

The plot errs too much on the side of being a girl-in-peril thriller/romance for my liking and the suspects are just too few to keep up the detection side of things.

Interesting contemporary view of psychiatry but pales a bit beside the Helen Mccloy novels I read recently.

3.5 stars

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is written in a fairly stylized way that was hard to get used to. Sentence construction is just a little bit strange and word choice just slightly off. But once you get used to it, this is a perfectly entertaining pulp novel. It's not great, but most pulps aren't; it's an entertaining romp through an overdramatic story.