TOUCH AND GO

Lawyer Lennox Kemp—his divorce, disgrace, and disbarment far behind him (This Blessed Plot, 1991, etc.)—is serenely practicing law in the London suburb of Newtown when he's informed of the death, in New York, of ex-wife Muriel. Remarried, rich and widowed, Muriel has left a fortune in gambling casinos to Preston Madison and Clive Horth, the shady partners who run them—or at least that's according to the will held by the impeccable firm of Eikenberg and Lazard, who now have evidence that a later will, duly executed but vanished, has left everything, including a raft of ruby jewels, to ex-husband Lennox Kemp. Those jewels have disappeared, too—in the possession of nurse Madeline Smith, now the hunted quarry of Madison and Horth, whose long reach extends even to the quiet environs of Newtown. A just-believable plot contrivance leads in time to a tense and neatly resolved windup that pushes Lennox's lawyerly skills to the limit. Vividly rounded characters and a literate, unpompous style add up to a warmly engrossing new chapter in the life and times of Lennox Kemp.