PERSON OR PERSONS UNKNOWN

English biographer Rona Parish recently gained fame for solving a murder. Consequently, a young woman, anxious about a possible murder in her own murky past, persuades the writer to investigate. In most of the ways that count, Jacqueline Tong's narration is undistinguished, serviceable but ordinary and slightly mannered. Except in one respect. She has infused this whodunit with an aura of feminine British primness, of practical shoes and to-do lists and meeting deadlines. This personality, bespeaking the heroine-sleuth's middle-class sensibility, elevates the story above the routine. It's the detective more than the detecting that hold one's interest. Tong makes Parish a role model for independent middle-class women -- conventional yet sensitive, gutsy, feminine, and capable. Y.R. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 06]