A Mouthful of Sand

Despite her literary self-assurance, Meek falters in this fifth mystery involving smart Lennox Kemp, London lawyer. Kemp joins his lover, Penelope Marsden, at a luxury resort on the Cornish coast where he chances to meet Mirable Snape, the wife of a client. The beautiful, bibulous woman sets tongues wagging with her gallivanting; she rarely puts in an appearance at the home of her aunt, where she is a nominal guest with her young son. When a man's decapitated head turns up in a fisherman's net, Mirable, for reasons unknown, becomes catatonic, and Kemp--by now seduced by her charms--finds himself investigating a murder case perhaps linked to her flashy crowd. Though compelled by Meek's writing up to this point, the reader is bound for disappointment in her contrived and incredible denouement: the rugged individualists who were her characters unexpectedly become ``types.'' (Apr.)