Ten Commandments

DCI David Webb features once again in Fraser's successful series (I'll Sing You Two-O, etc.), set in a small English town. A man's body is discovered in a pub car park, identity unknown. Similarities between this murder and an unsolved case from six years earlier plague Webb's investigation, especially after an elderly criminologist, Frederick Mace, inadvertently becomes involved when plugging his new book. Family problems complicate Mace's efforts to help the police solve the crimes; his daughter, Alex, is having an affair with a friend's husband, Patrick Knowles, whose own family includes an ill mother and a depressed sister. While all seems at loose ends, the narrative threads gradually come together in an intricate web of deceit and murder. Mace and Webb narrowly avoid tragedy as they race ever closer to the truth behind the killings, and Webb's personal life remains in focus. There's the requisite red herring or two and, although both victims appeared to lead blameless lives, a deeper side of each surfaces in this fully satisfying yarn. If one word can describe Fraser's writing, it's ""succinct."" Her plots develop quickly, and her prose is straight to the point--and neither narrative nor character suffers from this brevity. (Mar.)