DESIGN FOR MURDER

Quest did better with romance-gothic formula (The October Cabaret) than she does with this traditional-English murder mystery. The victim: Oliver Medway, a talented designer (in collaboration with heroine Tracy Yorke, who finds the bludgeoned body in their studio) but an extravagant, malicious, womanizing young swine. So Detective Inspector Neil Grant has many suspects to choose from: Oliver's past and present mistresses (including, perhaps, the third, present wife of Oliver's father, Sir Robert); Oliver's stepbrother Sebastian, now heir to the Medway fortune; Tracy herself; and Tracy's would-be suitor Tim Baxter, who runs a vineyard on land rented from Sir Robert. Tracy does a lot of genteel agonizing, but she has no more hope than the reader of spotting the murderer. . . since the trenchant relationships and motives are sprung full-blown in the last pages. Lots of tepid talk, innumerable cups of coffee, endless to-and-fro-ing--but, except for a mildly likable heroine, a harmless bore.