MYSTERY OF ISLAND KEEP
By
No Keepsake here. American Molly Stewart returns (Mystery of Castle Croome, 1966) to her recently inherited ancestral home for a second summer vacation. Again seconded by Oxford friends Pat and Penny Roderick, she uncovers some criminal types camping out on the nearby Keep. This bright Oxford student doesn't connect the hitchhiking, tooth-aching, wrapped-up old lady with hairy muscular arms to the uncaptured mail van robber (although the reader will). Then there's Meg (""virulent voice"") Ronalf of Black Ronalf's island in the weirdo tradition and upright Barbara Stewart who calls in the navy for a rescue when Molly and her minions are dungeoned on the Keep by Meg's bad boy and his partners. Insert some romance (son of a neighboring Sir for Molly, two imports for the twins) and some rigged-up references to natural gas (Molly's major, the two guys' raison and the island's soporific source), end with a Highland fling. The reel world if you dinna ken better.