A DEATH FOR A DANCING DOLL

London's intuitive lawyer-sleuth Robert Forsythe and his not- so-young but crisply efficient secretary Abigail Sanderson (Death of a Doctor, etc.) are vacationing in Vancouver, where Forsythe's been asked by a friend to talk to 70-ish Rebecca Holly. A frail widow, still shaken by the suicide of her ballet dancer granddaughter Thalia, Rebecca has already lost two sons—Thalia's father Reggie, and Kenneth, whose widow Harriet controls the bulk of the huge family fortune and has since married handsome, years- younger Dmitri Pulos. Rebecca is convinced that Thalia was no suicide, even though the girl blamed herself for the accidental death of seven-year-old Iona, daughter of Harriet and Dmitri. Circumstances lead Forsythe to wash his hands of Rebecca's problems, but her death in the course of what appeared to be a robbery creates a sense of guilt in Forsythe that causes him to investigate further—focusing on the Puloses'near-feudal estate and its coterie of easy-living hangers-on. Their dependence on Harriet's bounty provides a rich source of motives for murder, but answers tie in the past as well as the present. Lively, imaginative entertainment—one of this reliable writer's best.