THE SPEAKING STONES

A California romantic version of a May-December marriage doesn't founder until the grisly close; before then three offstage murders (two of pregnant women) unsettle 22-year-old Dany, who is married to 77-year-old composer Stefan and expecting a child. There's an odd assortment of live-ins and visitors at Dany and Stefan's remote hideaway: an overprotective housekeeper; Stefan's assistant who leans toward ""peculiar"" sexual pleasures; the son of Stefan's former mistress, a film maker; a modified hippie neighbor, etc. After Dany's voice teacher, who lost his wife through ""medical"" experiments in a concentration camp, is murdered, the plot, which has been treading water, finally strikes for shore. Anyone twice as dim as Dany can spot the perpetrator, but this can be read happily with half a mind.