SHADOWS ON THE SCEPTERED ISLE

Archaeological romantic suspense in England turns up a neo-Fascist, back-to-pure-Anglo-Saxon conpiracy. Elizabeth Kendall, 28, an American teacher, meets her old love Michael Grandville, who's about to do a documentary film on an archaeological dig at Thorn Hill Manor, the London townhouse of Sir Edmund Littell, an industrialist crocked on Arthurian lore and artifacts. While the students are busy with picks and shovels, mysterious happenings and a trio of murders take place, and Elizabeth begins to receive urgent, ominous messages from Dr. Geoffrey Trehane, Sir Edmund's old tutor. But Dr. Trehane is erased before he can meet Elizabeth--who winds up in a clark tunnel, where she spots an ancient cross believed to have belonged to King Arthur--a talisman in Sir Edmund's campaign to overthrow England's government. After the rescue, a round-up of Littell's supporters, and Sir Edmund's suicide, the grisly details of the plot are revealed. . . but one deadly spore has escaped in the form of a student who has absconded with the Arthurian cross. Rather bare-boned for such a romantic subject, but adequate for one round at the night table.