A FATAL ATTACHMENT

Prim, unflappable Lydia Perceval—a successful writer of historical biographies living quietly in the tiny Yorkshire village of Bly—seems an unlikely murder victim, but, as police detectives Mike Oddie and Charlie Peace soon find out, appearances can deceive. Lydia's sister and brother-in-law, Thea and Andy Hoddle, while maintaining surface amity, hate her for having years ago taken over the lives of their teenage sons Gavin and Maurice. Meanwhile, Lydia's ex-husband Jamie, newly returned to the district, knows she married him because she couldn't have his brother Robert, now a well-known explorer to whom Lydia has willed her considerable estate. In the weeks before her death, Lydia had begun the takeover of two new teenagers—Colin and Ted Bellingham, whose sick mother and clod of a father raised no objections. A lot of solid alibis and much conjecture seem to be leading the investigation nowhere—until Charlie comes up with some out-of- left-field inspiration that pins the killer. Graced with Barnard's usual ironic, literate style but short on the warmth, verve, and suspense that mark his best work (A City of Strangers, etc.).