SHADOWS OVER CASTLE RISING

With a few pleasant elaborations, this sequel to The Lormes of Castle Rising (p. 212) follows the formula for all those millpond-to-swansong sagas about upper Edwardians. Again below-stairs devotedly tends to the needs of those above; there are ruffles and flourishes at each birth and many somber brandies accompany news of death and taxes. Assorted chips fall from the old block, like Stephanie jailed for suffragette doings and Rosalind who weds an Irish fortune hunter. WW I brings out the fiber of the nobility--officers gallop to the front in high spirits and the women turn out for good works. To all this Cradock adds a supernatural note by gloomy references to hounds baying far off and the ancestral box--opened in the first book--which may announce the demise of a Way of Life. But good gossip abounds, and the stately-home circuit is well served by the series.