SHADOW PLAY

Crown Prosecutor Helen West (Deep Sleep, 1992, etc.) takes time out from her repeated attempts to convict a chronic stalker of schoolgirls called Mr. Logo to befriend Rose Darvey, an angry, compulsively promiscuous case clerk in her office, when she runs into her at a pregnancy clinic—not realizing that Rose has a surprisingly long-standing connection with Margaret Mellors, oh-so-proper Mr. Logo's next-door neighbor and surrogate mother, a connection that's about to bear fatal fruit. Fyfield's intelligence is as ferociously penetrating as ever- -unhappy Rose is particularly well-drawn—but there's barely enough action here to keep the pot simmering while waiting for Mr. Logo's plausible maleficence to bring it to a boil.