A Walk in the Wood

``The ease with which the mind can falsify,'' and the potentially disastrous consequences of such falsifications, are the underlying themes of this uncommonly meaningful romantic suspense novel set in England during WW II. As soon as schoolteacher Kate Borrow arrives in the placid village of Kinning, she becomes romantically involved with James Conrad. Ruled by instinct more than reality, Kate ascribes James's moodiness to guilt over not serving in the war and his father's suicide, but she fails to recognize his mental instability. Her judgments are equally skewed on college student Celia Mond, a Kinning native whom Kate decides is a sweet, guileless ingenue whose secret lover must be Edmund Westmain, the girl's former teacher. Her imagination run rampant, Kate attempts to prove that Westmain is a callous playboy responsible for Celia's mysterious disappearance. English novelist Gilbert ( The Long Shadow ) brings finely crafted prose and rich meditative passages to a tale marked by intellectual touches such as Kate's teaching of Milton's Comus , a work with parallels to the story. (Apr.)