Books: Murder in December, Jan. 6, 1941

THE. DEADLY SUNSHADE — Phoebe Atwood Taylor—Norfon ($2). Mrs. "Picklepuss" Belcher leads some Cape Cod Minutewomen into action with rifles on behalf of Deputy Sheriff Asey Mayo, who isn't sure the girls aren't potshotting at him. When Asey finds out who slipped Lucia Newell a beaker of atropine under the beach umbrella, he really teaches the skirted home guard to shoot.

THE SAINT IN MIAMI—Leslie Char-teris—Crime Club ($2). Simon Templar, specialist in cleaning up dirty business without benefit of law, devotes a vacation to scotching the Bund. Plenty of bloody action in the Everglades.

THE BRIDE WORE BLACK—Cornell Woolrich—Simon and Schuster ($2).

Unusually contrived novel of a wraithy woman in black, seen with four men who variously get pushed off a roof, drink cyanide in Arak, suffocate in a hall closet, get shot through the heart with an arrow. A fifth man escapes, and the jig is up.

THE CROSS-EYED BEAR—Dorothy B.

Hughes—Duell, Sloan and Pearce ($2).

Lizanne bore the mark of the Viljaas family, burned just below her left breast with acid. How she survived the murderous Viljaas plots that took off a lot of others was a wonder even to Inspector Tobin and G-Man Croyden. International skulduggery and juicy thrills.

THE DEPARTMENT OF QUEER COMPLAINTS— Carter Dickson — Morrow ($2). Eleven short stories, some of them featuring Colonel March of D3, Scotland Yard; murder galore; the body of Jane Waycross blazing in a pool of paraffin on a winter's eve.