Tincture of Death

The latest in Harrison's prized Victorian crime series featuring the appealing pair of sleuths Sgt. Bragg and Constable Morton centers on the legitimate opium trade in England. A complaint about costly imported tea, mysteriously poisoned, segues into more baffling cases, the murders by poisoning of the biggest opium dealer in the drug ring and of the Secretary to the Royal Commission on the Opium Trade. Journalist Catherine Marsden is asked by her friend Jane Sommers to help her addicted lover Ben Fowler, the circumstance connecting the women to the investigation. Making headway slowly, Bragg and Morton face powerful public figures who fear that naming opium as the agent of death will encourage prohibition of the ``cordial'' for the poorer classes who can't afford whiskey. Information about former times adds considerably to the entertainment in this dandy mystery, which by its subject is relevant to major issues today. (Dec.)