Fatal Legacy

September 17, 2001
There are familiar overtones of Ruth Rendell's Wexford (crusty, demanding), P.D. James's Dalgleish (sensitive, artistic), Colin Dexter's Morse (resistant to authority), Peter Robinson's Banks (his boss hates him) and Reginald Hill's Pascoe (a young female officer has a crush on him) in Corley's Det. Chief Insp. Andrew Fenwick. But they don't add up to a complete or even very interesting figure—although Corley does try to humanize her Sussex detective by making him the single parent of two young children after his wife went into an irreversible coma because of a failed suicide attempt. Perhaps Corley's day job—she's managing director of a large investment company—didn't leave her much time or energy to create a character of her own. This could explain why most of the other people in the book also seem so familiar—from the sexy, obviously psychotic wife of a young man who has just taken over his uncle's successful but crooked business conglomerate to the dominance-addicted milquetoast accountant who knows a secret from her shadowy past. The plot, about the rise to riches of the young man and his crazy wife thanks to the odd murder, has its moments, and the writing is mostly crisp and workmanlike. But clichés creep in all too often to jerk away the reader's attention. At one point, a phone call disturbs Fenwick, who was "relaxing with a good book." It certainly isn't this one. (Oct. 29)FYI:This is the first of British author Corley's mysteries to be published in the U.S.