Ms. Carr's last Elizabethan heroine (The Lion Triumphant, 1974) had given birth to a daughter, Linnett, who has inherited her mother's penchant for glowering autocratic males -- but this time there's more tingling in the spine than in the erogenous zones. After Linnett's marriage to her buccaneer, their castle hums with secrets: forbidden towers, a beautiful Spanish woman cast up by the sea, her husband's despicable trade -- and then Linnett's diary ends with her death. Tamsyn, Linnett's daughter, carries on the tale and detection. Thick as black pudding -- with molasses and a whiff of sulphur.