Perfect

In Kellogg's latest frothy adventure, retired jewel thief Kick Keswick leaps to the rescue when a trusted servant steals some of Queen Elizabeth II's most important jewels. Kick has come a long way since her impoverished girlhood, teenage pregnancy, rescue by a married titled lover and a stunning career as a thief herself. Now married to a semiretired Scotland Yard detective, Thomas Curtis, Kick putters around her house in Provence, where she needlepoints when she isn't cooking or laying down wine. She has what it takes to slip right into the character of Princess Margaret of Romania and penetrate the haute monde of the exclusive Swiss resort, Mont-St.-Anges, where she sets about trapping the dastardly fiend who has absconded with the royal emeralds. Character development? Plot? Compelling dialogue? Fuggedaboutit. Kellogg's tale is a cut-glass bowl of empty calories that reads like one part Van Cleef & Arpels catalogue and two parts Gourmet (except that Kick adds the beaten egg whites to the hot sugar syrup, instead of vice versa, when she makes icing for a devil's food cake). But Kellogg obviously has a good time writing the Kick Keswick novels (Priceless ), and her fans won't be disappointed. Agent, Robert Gottlieb. (Aug.)