THE FATAL TRIP

When an accused thief faints at his trial (a guilty verdict), Sgt. Nick Attwell and ex-cop wife Clare are surer than ever that he's innocent, the victim of a frame-up. . . something the Attwells know about all too well (Murder with Malice, p. 187). So Clare unofficially pays a visit to the sole eyewitness in the case, a spinster secretary who shortly thereafter is found unmarked but dead in her mysteriously chaotic boudoir--a superdose of LSD in her bedtime milk! Underwood proves again that neither a clever plot nor elaborate atmosphere is of the essence: his credible, appealing characters stretch the unsurprising events here into a tight and totally satisfying London story that could happen anywhere.