British award-winner Gosling adds another taut tale to her series featuring Detective Chief Inspector Luke Abbott, now in London. After Roger Leland, dies in a car crash, his American interior-designer wife, Tess, is beset by further troubles. Her home is burglarized; she receives unnerving silent phone calls. When her son Max comes down with rheumatic fever, she hires a widowed Cambridge scholar to tutor the boy in exchange for housing. Max's co-guardian opposes the plan even though Tess, whose phone caller has begun to demand money, expects to feel safer with a man in the house. Concurrently Detective Sergeant Tim Nightingale learns from the diary of a recently deceased retired politician that Roger's car was run off the road by a man who after the crash tried to pry open the trunk. Tim must convince Luke that the string of events are not merely coincidences. With stylish turns of phrase and special insights, Gosling tells an exciting tale that builds to a breathtaking finale in the London tube. Mystery Guild alternate. (Sept.)
Detective Luke Abbott plays a minimal role in this new series title from another popular British writer. Temporarily working for Scotland Yard, Abbott finally backs up ambitious young Detective Sergeant Nightingale, who suspects a connection between the ``accidental'' death of an interior designer's husband and subsequent harassment of the woman. Fraught with foreboding, a brooding Victorian mansion, female insecurities, wild suspicions, and other Gothic underpinnings, the novel's plot waffles a bit but may appeal to series followers and those who appreciate a struggling-against-all-odds heroine.
YA-- When Roger Leland is killed in an automobile crash, it's not clear whether it's an accident or murder. The only witness is found dead, and Roger's widow starts to receive frightening phone calls. YAs will be caught up in this web of mystery from page one to the pulsating climax, which features a hair-raising chase through the London subway system. --Roberta Lisker, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
