A SEASON FOR MURDER

A second outing for British consular officer Meredith Mitchell (Say It With Poison) brings her back to England and a new post in London. She accepts a friend's offer of a house in the Cotswolds, a long commute, and finds herself living in Pook's Common, an isolated huddle of cottages far from Bamford, the nearest town. Chief Inspector Alan Markby loses no time in renewing their acquaintanceship, and Meredith becomes friendly with neighbor Harriet Needham, a feisty, hard-drinking horsewoman, the area's femme fatale, who, soon after they meet, is thrown from her horse at the start of the Bamford Hunt, and dies. Was the accident due to the interference of anti-blood-sport activist Simon Pardy or to some more sinister cause? The answer lies in Harriet's past and in mega coincidence—most of it as unconvincing as a second murder, Meredith's near-fatal bout with the killer, and her tepid, not- quite romance with Markby. Add a plus for horse-lovers; for others, a slow-moving, only mildly interesting slog.