From Publishers Weekly
Jemima Shore, the British author's series sleuth, solves four cases in this collection of previously printed tales. Strikingly different, the other 13 stories feature supernatural or ironic incidents, each a satisfying shock. "Dr. Zeit" is a ghostly figure of foreboding to a mother and her son. Two women successfully commit a nasty crime in "Have a Nice Death," a funny and hackle-raising story. But Fraser's star turn is the drama played "On the Battlements" of a castle in Tuscany. Visiting friends, a renowned actor named Victor and his faithless wife Letty are exploring the turrets and he is reciting Shakespearean lines requested by others in the group, when Letty nearly falls. Victor saves her and she says with feeling, "I'll never slip again," reassuring him that she understands why he chose to speak excerpts from Othello.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.
Review
A mostly intriguing collection of 13 stories, only five of which feature TV personality Jemima Shore, heroine of the author's full-length novels (Oxford Blood, etc.). Overall, these are the slightest of the tales, having more to do with detection than with the supernatural or the murderous instincts of children that permeate the more resonant stories. In one of the best here, "Death of An Old Dog." Paulina Gavin's independent decision to have her new husband's aged spaniel put down leads to a strange pact and a tragic end. "Doctor Zeit" deals chillingly with death and premonition. In "Boots," sweet-faced little Emily finds a macabre way of dealing with her widowed mother's suitor, Mr. Inch. And there's a malevolent ghost haunting Jacobine in "Who's Been Sitting in My Car?" The stories' comfortable, upper-class milieus - and the well-intended children in them - play a solid counterpoint to Fraser's instinct for understanding the bizarre workings of the psyche's black regions. (Kirkus Reviews)
