CHILD'S PLAY

Perhaps the best—and certainly the most elaborate—mystery in the Yorkshire series featuring Inspectors Dalziel and Pascoe: two complex cases (one in its psychology, the other in its gothic twists) that wind up overlapping in a downright baroque—yet never foolish—way. The principal case involves the estate of the late Mrs. Gwendoline Huby—who has left her fortune to a trio of charities (including one shady right-wing outfit). . .unless her son Alex, missing in action in WW II Italy, should happen to show up at last. So, when a 60-ish gent from Italy turns up claiming to be the long-lost heir, several parties—including the bitter, disinherited Huby cousins—are curious, to say the least. And when the claimant soon turns up murdered, the Yorkshire cops enter the picture—including secretly homosexual Sgt. Wield, himself caught up in a tortured affair with a mulatto youth from London. . .until the young man (who was searching for his long-lost father) turns up dead in a ditch near the old Huby manse. Are the two killings connected? Was the claimant an impostor? These and other questions are eventually answered in a series of explanatory showdowns, with a few excess convolutions amid the tangle of impersonations, secret blood-links, and homicidal delusions. But the getting-there is almost always fascinating and darkly amusing—with a colorfully varied support cast (reporters, lawyers, pub folk) and slightly new roles for Dalziel (more wise than foul this time) and Pascoe (frankly confused).