Edgar Box was the pen name of Gore Vidal, who wrote [the mysteries, "Death in the Fifth Position," "Death before Bedtime," and "Death Likes It Hot," in the early fifties], and then dropped the genre. Each features the public-relations man Peter Cutler Sargeant III. Each has characters who move in relatively high society: great ballet dancers, Washington moguls, East Hampton Social Register types. Box/Vidal tried to get a breezy style … into his Sargeant, who is dragged into murder willy-nilly. The writing is a bit forced, a bit dated, but the three books are nevertheless rather charming period pieces. Some social commentary is present, though the author does not carry things to an obsessive point, as does his opposite number William F. Buckley Jr. in his mystery novels.

Newgate Callendar, "Crime: 'Death in the Fifth Position', 'Death before Bedtime', and 'Death Likes It Hot'," in The New York...