STRANGE LADY

Some knockings about with a Maugham-like, detached but interested narrator -- a British novelist who delights in ""first-naming"" the ""great""--amid the international set of society and music. From Tunisia's Goblin Market to a music festival ""high in the hills"" above a Swiss-German city and a cunning chalet nearby, to London in the full throes of the ""season"", this blocks out the all-excluding, all-consuming love of a famous but forty-fivish American actress addicted to ""precious"" plays for a Russo-American pianist with Liszt-like leanings toward young lady disciples. The ageing Leila has caused the death of young Ardsley's wife in Rio and now ""kills"" again--this time the career of young Roumanian pianist Magda Manescu--all to the tune of penny psychiatrizing. A sure, slick style combined with the pull of high life in far places seems to insure success for this from the author of The Paradine Case and The Young Mis Brand Lending library tills ought to tinkle merrily once this is on the shelves.