THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT

Sanders's name, like that of the aging Bela Lugosi, has lately become a virtual guarantee of incompetence. Here, his dogged tour of the Decalogue continues with a tale of murder, theft, and assorted lesser crimes that would be sub par for anyone else but that's no lower than his recent average. Brainy, dumpy insurance-investigator Dora Conti is pulled away from her loving Hartford hubby Mario to see whether one of the beneficiaries of jewelry colossus Lewis Starrett's $3 million policy may have stabbed him to death. The big questions here are: (1) Which of the Starrett survivors and hangers-on looks the most suspicious-widow Olivia, dazzled by "Father" Brian Gallaway; daughter Felicia, hooked on drugs and con-man Turner Pierce; son Clayton, big-time adulterer (with Turner's sister Helene) and importer of gold; or Clayton's charity-ball wife Eleanor, a stranger to sex for the years since her miscarriage? (2) Will Dora solve the mystery, by engaging a scruffy computer-hacker and poring over the evidence until she notices details that have been screaming at the most comatose readers, before the entire cast is killed off? (3) How many murderers can fit between the covers of one book (four fatal stabbings are committed by four different people)? (4) Will Dora submit to the blandishments of N.Y.C. policeman John Wenden (who doesn't just want a quickie—it's something more than that) or be true to Mario? (5) When will Sanders stop wrapping his well-observed portraits of predatory greed in the mystery-detective trappings he still hasn't mastered? You might want to know that nobody does time for any of those four murders, and Dora, headed back to Mario, recommends the big-ticket claim be paid in full. Ironic.