BROUGHT TO BOOK

Having run Chief Inspector Webb through all his nursery-song–titled paces (The Twelve Apostles, 2000, etc.), Fraser bares the havoc set off by a biographer who chooses too dangerous a subject.

When Theo Harvey’s widow Meriel begs Rona Parish to chronicle the life of the prolific suspense novelist, Rona has her misgivings. She’s only just finished her life of Conan Doyle and wants a break. Besides, the coroner’s verdict on recently drowned Harvey is still open. Her artist husband Max Allerdyce, who for professional reasons keeps his own cottage several miles from Rona’s house in Marsborough, urges her to reject the project. But once she signs a contract with her publisher, Rona must press on despite the disapproval of Justin Grant, Meriel’s cousin, and the misgivings of her mother, too preoccupied with such matters to notice that her own husband’s on the verge of a heart attack. Only Rona’s twin Lindsey, reeling from her divorce from an ex who doesn’t want to stay that way and embarked on a whirlwind romance with dark horse Rob Stuart, is too busy to warn her off. But no one, not even the mysterious stranger who follows Rona in his car and leaves threatening messages for her in the park, deters Rona from probing Harvey’s famous two-year dry spell and the stunning change in his writing style that followed—a mission that may cost Rona her life.

A decent puzzler with surprises popping up at respectable intervals.