POLITICAL DEATH

Thirty years after the Right Honourable Burgo Smyth's name was linked with scandal—his journalist friend Franklyn Faber disappeared in the middle of his trial for passing on government secrets—the Home Secretary is back in the wrong column, as demented Lady Imogen Swain announces their long-ago affair to anyone who'll listen, and offers her old diaries and letters to TV investigator Jemima Shore. What a relief for Smyth's whole Tory family when Lady Imogen is silenced by a fatal fall from her children's nursery window—and how awkward when another fatal fall at the Irving Theatre, where her daughter Millie is starring in Twelfth Night, suggests that somebody still wants to keep the Faber Secrets Case secret. A professional return to familiar territory from the reliable Fraser (Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave, 1992, etc.).