CHECKMATE

The final volume of Dorothy Dunnett's pan-European romance brings the prodigal wandering knight Francis Crawford of Lymond nearer home to motherland and mother Sybilla as he is reunited in Lyons with his wife-in-name-only Philippa. Against the backdrop of wars and court intrigues at the time of Philip's accession to the Spanish throne, his military skills and loyalties are purchased with the promise of a divorce so he can return—to which lady?—to Russia; while he and his look-alike half sister research their paternity via astrological charts and old nurses. After 1001 episodes and colloquia among the proliferous supporting cast, Mrs. Dunnett's constant readership will be happy to learn that it was Philippa all along and that his geneaology will establish him once and for all as laird at his ladies' Scottish fireside. The little complexities—old mistresses, his bastard son— are precipitously tied off. Why not? After uncountable false stops and starts, murders and resurrections, surprise unmaskings and unlikely turns of plot, surely anything might have happened between one asterisk and the next archaism through these six volumes of padded silk embroidery—even an ending of convenience.