A Private Inquiry

Blackmail, missing persons, murder and a child's death all intertwine in a tantalizing if uneven tale preoccupied with the psychological underpinnings of its female characters. A seemingly benign planning commission hearing at Dorset introduces sexual adventurer Neville Cox, an entrepreneur appealing a refusal to permit construction of a children's nursery; Barbara Pomeroy, the planning inspector charged with determining the case; and Dr. Fidelis Berlin, a childless child psychologist testifying on behalf of the appellant. When an anonymous telephone call warns Pomeroy that her 11-year-old son, Toby, will be killed unless she rules in Cox's favor, the inspector's confidence in her ability to juggle peripatetic employment and motherhood is precariously eroded. The eerily inviting presence of ""Aunt"" Clarissa, Toby's newly acquired friend, confers a whiff of intrigue, while Sophie, the overeager psychology student who latches onto Dr. Berlin with uncanny sensitivity, is menacing in her obsequiousness. Too bad that Mann does not deliver fully on her promise of compelling female characters: These women are emotionally enfeebled, downright vicious or weighted-down by their pathetic ruses. The warmth and curiosity one might feel toward them is compromised by patches of clumsy dialogue and interior reverie (""she was only just forty, too young to welcome release from the bondage of physical desire""), as well as simplistic formulations of motive. (Feb. 1)