Faintley Speaking

Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, psychiatrist and consultant for Britain's Home Office, is vacationing with her assistant Laura when the latter, out on a hike with a young boy, discovers the body of Miss Faintley, one of his teachers, tucked under a bush. From the police Mrs. Bradley learns that the woman was involved in an odd, slightly illegal transfer of packages containing different specimens of fern. Following her instincts to such settings as the caves of Lascaux in France and the Isle of Wight, Mrs. B. uncovers a complex currency-smuggling scheme. Although the style of the late author (she died in 1983) is breezy and light, plotting in the latest Lestrange Bradley adventure (following Spotted Hemlock, is flimsy, far-fetched and hard to follow. (May 19)