Touch and Go: A Lennox Kemp Mystery

A copy of the latest will written by widowed Muriel Probert shortly before her lonely death in a posh Manhattan apartment indicates that she left a suitcase filled with rubies and shares in a Las Vegas casino to her first husband, British lawyer Lennox Kemp (featured in A Worm of Doubt and six other mysteries). But the jewels and the legal copy of the will are missing, as is the self-effacing nurse Smith, who cared for Muriel during her last weeks. Kemp--intelligent, skeptical but above all a dedicated Don Quixote--begins a transatlantic investigation of those near Muriel at the end: her longtime housekeeper Florence (recently wed to the strange new butler), a slow-witted maid, nurse Smith, the doctor, the lawyers, and most of all Muriel's late husband's menacing partners in the casino. The absorbing tale is somewhat flawed by an occasionally careless blend of British expressions with stereotypical American slang. But the scenes with the dying Muriel are affecting, the resolution is intriguing and the central characters--Lennox and nurse Smith--are appealing enough to engage the reader right to the end. (Mar.)