ISLAND OF EDEN

Posh Santa Serena is a tax-free Caribbean island where all the old dowagers entrust their funds to banker Howard Halston, a seemingly solid fellow. He also wins the love of likable Eleanor, ""oversensitive, overeducated, and over thirty."" (Eleanor, how could you?) Then Howard begins tampering with trust money so that he can ditch Eleanor and run off with his ""popsy."" Lady Haverhill, the sharp-tongued ex-courtesan who knows all, helps undo the villains, abetted by a modern touch of feminist revenge. The dialogue is somewhat leaden, and the sex scenes tend to be more vivid than the thinly plotted intrigue, but the author's manifest decency gives this bit of froth a satisfying tang.