My Search for Ruth

This is a reissue of one of the prolific British author's mysteries, first published in England in 1973. Clarke's narrator, Ruth, relives her haunted growing years and the torments she felt because no one would tell her the truth about her missing mother, also called Ruth. The orphan runs away from guardians and lies to a man she meets, telling him she's a student at St. Margaret's, where professor West escorts her. The headmistress, Miss Murry, who knew Ruth's mother when she was a student there, allows the girl to stay and becomes her foster mother, asking Ruth to call her Nan. Bit by bit, Ruth inveigles information from Nan, which is revealed to be false in the mystery's shocking finale. During succeeding events, hints about strange relationshipsbetween West and Miss Murry, between the girl and everyone elseare introduced as side issues that eventually prove meaningless, and irksome to boot. But a more serious failing lies in the character of the heroine; she is querulous, unkind, thankless and self-dramatizing. While the natural inclination is to sympathize with the orphan, readers may instead feel for Ruth's generous benefactors. Doubleday Book Club dual main selection; Mystery Guild alternate. (April)