Some Old Lover's Ghost

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 1/11/1999

Popular British writer Lennox (Footprints in the Sand) frames her romantic mystery, spanning a century's worth of family intrigue, adultery and betrayal, with a modern-day dilemma. London biographer-documentary filmmaker Rebecca Bennett is 31 years old, bright and ambitious, but after having been left abruptly by her selfish lover when she miscarries his child, she's devastated. Depressed, Rebecca almost turns down the chance to write the biography of Dame Tilda Franklin, an activist who devoted her life to saving orphaned or unwanted children. Rebecca knows that saints make for dull stories, and she's interested in the "skull beneath the skin." But Tilda reveals a wealth of skeletons in a long-locked closet and Rebecca is drawn to Tilda and to her handsome lawyer grandson, Patrick. Gradually, frail, elderly Tilda recounts her complicated early life; her mother was raped by wealthy Edward de Paveley, who connived to have her sent to an asylum, and Tilda was raised by a strange, vengeful aunt. Her first love, Daragh Canavan, marries de Paveley's legitimate daughter, but never stops loving Tilda, though Tilda weds journalist Max Franklin and has a family of her own. Decades later, as Rebecca is researching Tilda's story, a body is discovered, believed to be Daragh's. A mysterious caller accuses Tilda of murdering Daragh years ago, so Rebecca plunders the family history, chasing ghosts and rumors in hopes of revealing the truth. Little does she know she's in danger herself from an unexpected source. Believable characters and a tale rife with shocking scandals make for a chilling mystery, though at times the plot whips through historical eras and switches narrative voices with little warning. Readers may sympathize with Tilda's mother, whose life was ruined in 1914 by bearing a child out of wedlock, but will have a harder time understanding modern-day Rebecca, an emotional basket case who seems to make a habit of getting pregnant at the outset of her romances, and seems powerless in directing her life, despite her description as a worldly, enterprising career woman.