Sweet Poison

In this workmanlike novel death comes to General Sir Alistair Craig, a WWI veteran with a checkered past, with the serving of the after-dinner port at the lavish home of the duke of Mersham. The setting is England in the '30s. The dinner topic is Adolf Hitler's sudden rise to power. The dinner guests include a pretty communist writer, a pacifist clergyman, a powerful newspaper tycoon and a Nazi. Was Craig a suicide? He was in poor health, despondent over his wife's recent death, and his wartime acts of cruelty to POWs were about to be made public. Or was it murder by cyanide poisoning? Never veering far from formula, this debut historical whodunit provides a sketchily drawn series of suspects snatched straight from central casting. The sleuthing team comprises Lord Edward Corinth, the duke's dashing younger brother, and Verity Browne, the commie scribe with a rich daddy. They clash predictably and set off the occasional romantic salvo, which naturally goes undetected by one another. Roberts neglects the tiresome catalogue of reasons why the obvious suspects would cheerfully murder the general to focus instead on poor Hermione, the drug-addicted daughter of newspaper magnate Lord Weaver. Hermione's travails seem a weird inclusion, since she's pretty much the only guest without a decent motive to kill Craig. Period-piece murder tales are lamentably legion, and this newest entry displays little to distinguish it. (Jan. 1)