Easy Silence

""Suddenly William was able to contemplate the fact quite calmly: he would have to murder his wife."" At the start of this unusual portrait of a British marriage, middle-aged William Handle is far from entertaining such wicked thoughts. For years, he has been happily married to Grace. Husband and wife each have their own satisfying occupations--William is the principal violinist of the Elmtree Quartet, and Grace is a painter--and they live comfortably in a suburb west of London. But then a new viola player--the attractive Bonnie Morse--joins William's previously all-male quartet, and William loses his head. Meanwhile, Grace is getting more and more caught up in the life of the Handles' unbalanced but charismatic young neighbor, Lucien, who visits in the mornings and rants about his domineering mother. As William's plans to rid himself of his wife progress, farce shifts into black comedy. But after a split that includes Lucien's betrayal, Grace and William reunite with a simplicity that belies the homicidal frisson previously in the air. Huth (Land Girls) shows how human destiny is shaped amid the tinkling of teacups, in this very British tale. Although Grace and William are not entirely rounded characters, they are engaging as something more than symbols of middle-class married malaise. Easy to read, but brittle around the edges, the novel gives a cool account of thwarted passion. (Mar.)