A Deceptive Appearance: A Tim Simpson Mystery

In his ninth appearance, Tim Simpson, the sophisticated London banker/sleuth last seen in Sheep, Goats and Soap , follows a slow-starting plot that is confined mainly with the workings of international finance, the cosmetics industry and art history. Former British rugby star Simpson is sent by White's Bank to help its French ally Maucourt Freres determine whether to buy Bellevie, a cosmetics firm in which it has a stake. Though reluctant to leave Sue, his wife of less than a year (she is a curator at the Tate Gallery), Tim plunges ahead even after learning that Maucourt analyst Michel Bonnet has been killed in a suspicious car accident near the Bellevie plant in Nantes. Old Charles Maucourt seems interested only in discussing the narrative painter Jacques-Joseph Tissot, a less celebrated contemporary of Whistler. Two deaths come in quick succession: Mme. DeLattre, head of Bellevie and Charles's lover and partner in the Resistance, is killed in a Metro accident, and another Bellevie employee dies in a fall. Tim foils a murderous attack on a Maucourt grandson, frustrates an ambush at the Bellevie plant and uncovers a simple scam, leaving unresolved the mysterious provenance of some Tissot canvasses. (Dec.)