The Other Woman: An Inspector Lloyd and Judy Hill Mystery

London Det. Chief Inspector Lloyd and his colleague and lover, Judy Hill, series protagonists last seen in The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale , are caught up, and nearly strangled, in a convoluted plot in which they, the murder victim and the suspects are knotted together in a series of unraveling, interwoven relationships. Reporter Melissa Whitworth is working on a story about illicit love affairs when she realizes that she's interviewing her husband's mistress, a young woman who subsequently causes a fight between two men at the opening of a new football field. A few hours later, after Melissa has avenged herself in bed with a sportswriter, he stumbles over the mistress's corpse. Many of these events are observed by a young motorcyclist dressed in black. Hill and Lloyd must interview a slew of men smitten with the victim, deal with their own tempestuous affair and investigate a series of rapes that dovetail with the murder. McGown rescues her story from its elliptical, intricate beginning to produce a bravura finish. (Mar.)