FANFARE FOR A WITCH

Even Vaughan Wilkins outdoes himself in this explosive, overcrowded novel, which manages to combine a motley assortment of intricacies of plot within plot. Here they are: the book is their unravelling. (1) George II has succeeded his father, George I, and there's considerable gloating over the succession -- and suspicions as to how the monarch died. (2) George II and his queen, Caroline, cordially hate their eldest son, know as the ""Griffe"", Frederick, Prince of Wales, and plot to do away with him, his mousey wife, Augusta, and the baby-about-to-be-born. (3) William, younger brother is favored as the heir- and is used by the Jacobites in their plottings. (4) The mysterious Empress of Morocco, with her retinue, takes up residence in a palace, from which she proceeds to disappear, and reappear in various roles; her purpose, the uncovering of her own somewhat muddied past in England, whence she was shipped to the Colonies, escaped, was shipwrecked, and married the Emperor of Morocco. (5) The Moroccan Emperor dies; the Pasha, virtually Prime Minister, sacrifices his future to aid the Prince of Wales- and dares aspire to the hand of the widowed Empress. (6) Old George I's past rises up to compound the confusion, with a changeling baby- to whom the Moroccan Empress was later wedded in secret, thus being really wife and widow to an unclaimed throne. Now- I ask you- match that for a potpourri of extravaganza.