Trail of Havoc: 2in the Steps of Lord Lucan

British barrister, journalist, editor and TV scriptwriter, Marnham (Fantastic Invasion: Dispatches from Contemporary Africa et al.) here recreates events before and after a badly wounded Veronica Lucan fled her Belgravia home in London. Her flight to a pub seeking help triggered a notorious 1974 murder investigation. She claimed that her husband John Bingham, Lord Lucan, had tried to kill her and had murdered their children's nanny, Sandra Rivett. This was the first stop on the ``trail of havoc,'' which the author investigates, exposing members of Lucan's circle (the ``elite'' to whom no law applies). Marnham's account sheds light on various influential people and their efforts to vindicate Lord Lucan (who vanished after that fatal November night). When the author covered the case for the magazine Private Eye, he detected signs of corruption in the office of the prime minister and in the operations of the titled suspect's friends, including moneyed James Goldsmith, who sued the magazine for libel. In the final chapters, Marnham presents his own convincing explanation of the murder, which had tragic repercussions for everyone involved. Photos. (June)