cover image Cotswold Moles

Cotswold Moles

Michael Spicer. St. Martin's Press, $17.95 (199pp) ISBN 978-0-312-09263-4

British MP Spicer ( Cotswold Murders ) sends his sleuthing secret agent Lady Jane Hildreth and her septuagenarian bodyguard, the Hon. Patricia Huntington, Down Under in this talky, untidy tale. Lady Jane, who refers to herself as the ``little blond bombshell from London with the posh accent, designer jeans, leather boots and, okay, the sexy looks,'' is insufferable; her self-absorption is not redeemed by the loyalty of her sidekick. Jane finds a butler hanged from a tree near the English country home where the aged lady of the manor has recently died. The butler is discovered to have had some scientific knowledge; doctored foreign passports surface; arms deals are mentioned. All that remains of the dead woman's family are to be found in the Australian Outback, to which the shadowy Chief, Jane's hunky and enigmatic boss, dispatches the duo. At the end, an Australian chemical plant is connected to a Middle Eastern political leader, and both are tied to a long-held dark family secret. Both characterization and plot are unconvincing here. (June)