A Death for a Dilettante

Launched by A Death for Adonis, Giroux's series of praised thrillers include alliteratively titled tales about a darling, a dancer and a doctor. The death of a dilettante is prefigured in the author's latest, starring favorite sleuths Robert Forsythe, a London lawyer, and his clever secretary Miss Sanderson, the motherly ""Sandy.'' They agree to visit the stately home of rich Winslow Maxwell Penndragon, 75, whose determination to live for another three decades seems endangered. Winslow wants Forsythe and Sandy to flush out the person who has tried to kill him twice. The guests realize they're in a rum household; Winslow has summoned two sons and a daughter, their first meeting with the father who, decades earlier, had seduced and discarded their different mothers. Among other potential heirs are Winslow's widowed sister-in-law and her son, as well as servants with puzzling connections to the master. Before the detecting partners start to work, the next attempt to murder Winslow succeeds, and the strange, often deftly amusing story moves to a fantastic denouement. (March 23)