MALARKEY

Bookseller Lark Dodge, now living in the Pacific Northwest (Meadowlark, 1996, etc.), has arrived in Dublin to meet her history professor father, George Dailey, who's recovering from a recent stroke. She's to be his driver while he explores the byways of his Irish-Quaker roots and the two of them live in Bedrock Cottage on the Stanyon Hall estate. George has rented the cottage from his onetime student Alex Stein, who, along with wife Barbara, has developed Stonewall Enterprises, a producer of innovative CDs. Alex and Barbara have moved to Ireland for tax purposes and are renovating the estate for business and residence. They've also taken on a manager-partner—Slade Wheeler, a moneyed American ex- Army man who likes to direct war games with the local lads on the estate's extensive woodlands. But Lark and George have scarcely arrived at the cottage when Lark finds Wheeler's body in a shed, a red circle of paint on his forehead. Sergeant Joe Kennedy suspects Tommy, ne'er-do-well son of contractor Toss Tierney (both have vanished), but Wheeler wasn't too popular with the Stonewall staff, either, or with the family of his pregnant girlfriend Grace Flynn. Meanwhile, Lark's calls home have brought her ex-police detective husband Jay to the cottage, hoping to help solve a mystery soon complicated by another killing and not resolved until Jay's life hangs in the balance. Most of the interest here lies in the Irish ambiance. Murders and motives barely impinge on a touchy Lark's emotional turmoil or on accounts of local roads, pubs, foods, etc. The bit of suspense in the end is, alas, too little too late.