THE HANGING GARDEN

When bossy Antonia Hanbury takes a fatal spill down a flight of stairs in her house in Madeira, her executrix—plant-nursery-keeping aunt Celia Grant (The Sunflower Plot, etc.)—is dispatched to the Portuguese island to clear her estate and see to arrangements for Antonia's father, retired MI-5 eminence Sir Adrian Morton, crippled by a stroke. There are unpublished memoirs, naturally, plus the desperate pursuit of Sir Adrian's nurse, Maria Silva, by a mysterious pair of foreigners—not to mention the sudden return of Antonia's ex, Gerald Hanbury, a ruined speculator who makes a beeline from an English prison to reclaim his terrified children—and Antonia's affairs of the heart, her shady business dealings with the locals, and, well, her habit of blackmail. Not even Solomon could tie all these loose ends together, and charming, levelheaded Celia—now in her seventh outing—doesn't come close. As usual, though, you'll have a pleasantly civilized time watching her try.