My Name is Polly Winter

Black ( A Vow of Chastity ) mixes a ghost story with mystery in this disappointing tale about a researcher who falls under the spell of an old crime. Social historian Jessica Cameron moves into The Cedars, an old house near Liverpool, as she begins her search for a typical Victorian middle-class family for an exhibition on domestic history. She becomes intrigued by earlier tenants of The Cedars, the Makins, and the unsolved disappearance in 1859 of Rev. Edward Makin's daughter and her governess. But Jessica's research into the case is accompanied by unusual events, most notably frequent sightings of the Makins's spectral maid, Polly Winter, whose account of the Victorian tragedy is interspersed throughout the story. Then the current housekeeper of The Cedars and her daughter disappear and Jessica herself becomes the target of a very real villain. While failing to convincingly interweave the contemporary and Victorian stories, Black also violates a cardinal rule of mystery writing by introducing the culprit in the last chapters. (Feb.)