Wakefield Hall

Edith Wharton, Charlotte Bronte, Daphne DuMaurier, Gustave Flaubert and William Shakespeare are among the literary luminaries invoked, quoted and alluded to in this chilly romantic thriller. But even these great names don't lend much depth to Stanfill's ( Shadows and Light ) shallow effort. Narrator Elisabeth Rowan, who writes about the arts for the Wall Street Journal , has long been obsessed with reknowned actress Joanna Eakins. Not long after Joanna's death, her husband, New York mover and shaker David Cassel, summons Elisabeth to Wakefield Hall, his grand country home, and informs her that she has been chosen to write the stage performer's biography. While collecting numerous windy, italic-strewn reminiscences from Joanna's friends and mentors, Elisabeth must also cope with the hostile maneuverings of Joanna's bond-trader stepdaughter and with her own longstanding romantic attachment to Jack Varady, a singularly unappealing (but very rich) married man. When at long last the novel's central puzzle is resolved, the answer seems more gratifying to the narrator than it will be to readers. The sheer volume of name-dropping is wearying: Elisabeth and her lover don't just sit at a good table at the Four Seasons; they gulp Montrachet ``in the prestigious corner booth (the one usually reserved for Philip Johnson).'' Those who make their way to the novel's end are most likely to feel a bit browbeaten by the author's know-it-all attitude and the relentless barrage of highfalutin people, places and things. (May)