cover image Blackwood's Daughter

Blackwood's Daughter

Harriet La Barre. St. Martin's Press, $17.95 (264pp) ISBN 978-0-312-04299-8

Almost everyone but wide-eyed, lovely Faron Blackwood, the title character of this slow-paced, pedestrian mystery set in Britain, realizes that her father, John, a hard-drinking literary lion, really didn't drown off the coast of Massachusetts when poor Faron was a youngster. He surfaced in England, usurping the identity of Aussie expatriate poet Simon Maxwell, father of sweet Poppy, stepfather of brooding Lucas and husband of warmhearted Joan. When Faron travels to London to lecture on her late father's legend, Simon unwisely makes contact, jolting several who knew him in his previous life: his nervous agent Olivier; Gideon Wiss, an odious liar who hopes to write the definitive Blackwood biography; and an Australian who loved the real Simon. Bodies stack up in short order, but there's little excitement since the cast is straight from stock and LaBarre ( The Florentine Win ) semaphores nearly every plot twist in advance. (July)