THE IVY TREE

Stories revolving around an impersonation have an undeniable fascination--and Mary Stewart does a double take with her usual skilled smoothness. Is it Annabel Winslow who has come home, , to her dying grandfather-or is it Mary Grey of Canada, who resembles her so closely that her handsome and terrifying cousin Con dared to plan to use her to his own ends with no conselence about what it meant to the real Annabel-or to Cousin Julie. Or for that matter to old Matthew, still retaining his faculties, and to the self-contained neighbor, Adam Forrest, whom Annabel had loved- and run away from-while he was still married to a neurotic wife eight years before. It took the old man's death-his unexpected will and a violent storm to produce the situation in which truth was out. Throughout the intricacies of plot within plot, Mary Stewart keeps her readers guessing and sustains the suspense. One misses the allure of more exotic backgrounds-or her earlier books- but this tale spinner is still supreme.