THE CRUELLEST MONTH

Bland Sheila Malory (the widow heroine of Mrs. Malory Investigates) settles her son in at Oxford, then retires to the Bodleian Library, arguably the nicest setting a mystery could have, to research an article on little-known Victorian authors. Her godson Tony, a shy Bodleian staffer, is helpful but fretful: it was he who, a short while back, discovered irascible Gwen Richmond dead in the stacks. The police deemed it an accident, but Tony has found two clues—and with them the dull, naive Mrs. Malory begins delving. She learns that Gwen was hated by many and may have been blackmailing some, including Tony's financially overwhelmed sweetheart; an elderly scholar from Harvard; and the inimitable Fitz, a don under whose spell Sheila and her youthful love Rupert fell years ago as undergraduates. Whodunit? Certainly not the author, who is, correctly, more interested in Bodleian accoutrements, Oxford byways, and bittersweet remembrances of romance. Not as complicated as the author may have intended, but one of the world's great libraries is always worth a visit.