STALKER

A meandering, fuzzy outing for London private-eye Anna Lee (an edgy employee at Briefly Security), whose assignment this time is to track down con-man Edward Marshall: according to Anna's prim client, Marshall recently disappeared. . . after getting away with money supposedly borrowed to set up a jointly owned furniture shop. So Anna stakes out Marshall's last reported neighborhood: no luck, but a few engaging vignettes with Marshall's tart wife and other seedy types. Then, having learned that Marshall was last seen headed for the rounds of antique-furniture sales, Anna visits a few rural auction-centers--winding up at the Mendip Hills hotel, where Marshall was well-known indeed. . . as ""furniture dealer, fraud, poacher, husband, con and lech."" And, not too surprisingly, Anna soon stumbles on a corpse in nearby woods--Marshall's, of course, though how he wound up there will only be explained (unsatisfyingly) after some attacks on Anna and much hemming-and-hawing. Very weak as mystery, then--but Anna (Dupe, Bad Company) has a couple of amusing encounters with rural folks (including a horse); she has a not-so-amusing romance with a vacationing entrepreneur (married); and such character-touches may be enough to keep some readers gently, pertly engaged.