HINDSIGHT

Once again Dickinson is playing with time and memory, offering a bygone mystery/ crime in oblique, refracted pieces--with some tantalizing effects, but with less charm and satisfying shapeliness than in The Last House-Party. Crime-writer Paul Rogers is working on a novel about his WW II days at his prep school--when the school was evacuated to the Devon countryside, when twelve-year-old Paul did, in fact, discover the body of timid teacher Mr. Wither, supposedly the victim of a wild stag. But the grownup Paul has problems in turning his real-life memories (which come and go) into neat fiction--especially since he gets periodic, disturbing input from ailing biographer Simon Dobbs, whose current subject is ""Great Writer"" Isidore Steen (d. 1927). What's the connection? Well, it seems that Steen's famous, beautiful mystery-love Molly Benison was on the prep-school staff down in Devon during the War, taking a special, quirky interest in young Paul. So, as Dobbs seeks data on Molly from Paul, memories are triggered--with the two writers puzzling together (by letter) over enigmatic incidents and fuzzy details. Who was Molly's ugly, drunken female companion? Who was the young ""niece"" who lived with them (sweetheart of the doomed Mr. Wither)? And could it be that another prep-school staffer, creepy Captain Smith, was the great Steen's great homosexual love back in the 1920s? Paul continues writing his novel--chapters of which are included--while the bits of memory start to add up. But it's only after a visit to the now-aged Captain Smith that he puts together all the pieces, coming up with a slice of 1920s sex-games nastiness, an illegitimate babe. . . and a rather strained motive for the murder of poor Mr. Wither. With too much secret material surfacing in the last chapters, this lacks the elegant construction of The Last House-Party; but connoisseurs of the offbeat Dickinson talent will probably find his latest fabrication a brief, beguiling diversion--with its curious, stylish mix of mystery-puzzle, literary-gossip, and prep-school/countryside nostalgia.