WHO IS SIMON WARWICK?

After some recent lapses into dreary or precious tales abroad, Moyes' Inspector Henry Tibbett is back in London--and nearly back on top with this playfully old-fashioned merry-go-round of missing heirs, false claimants, and fabricated identities. The late Lord Charlton has left his fortune to his nephew Simon Warwick, who was adopted as a war-orphan baby by unknown American parents. Charlton's lawyer advertises for the long-lost relative to step forward, and two Simon Warwicks appear: a sleek Virginia executive on the rise (offering his infancy passport as proof) and a seedy, English-accented fellow who claims to have run away from Maryland (his proof is a birth certificate). When the seedy Simon is strangled in the lawyer's waiting room, suspicion falls not only on the sleek Simon (who discovers the body) but on all those with financial interest in the Charlton fortune. The greedy culprit is easy to spot, and Tibbett doesn't shine here, but Moyes' grand gimmick is that it's the non-murder mystery--Who is Simon Warwick?--that supplies the special, unforgettable aha! worth waiting for. Ingenious and elegant, with nary a trace of formula.