cover image The Neighbors

The Neighbors

Carol Smith. Warner Books, $23.95 (384pp) ISBN 978-0-446-52241-0

This romantic suspense novel from London literary agent Smith (Charmed Circle) is set in London in 1995. Princess Diana is still alive, the 50th anniversary of VE Day is approaching and rogue stock traders in the City are pressing their financial schemes on na ve victims. Protagonist Kate Ashenberry has just returned to her native England after living for several years with an abusive boyfriend in New York City. She sublets a flat in Kensington Court, a massive Victorian mansion block in an upscale Kensington neighborhood. At first, Kate's memories of past abuse make her reluctant to emerge from the protective cocoon of her new home. But eventually she becomes friendly with some of the people who live in the building. The neighbors are a mixed bag of personalities, and Smith spends much of the novel delineating their quirks and personal histories. However, even as Kate learns to relax in what she believes are safe surroundings, something evil is afoot in the staid old building. A mysterious figure seems to watch her from a nearby apartment, and an elderly woman is murdered in a locked room. Kate's own dark past may be returning to haunt her. Murders keep happening around her, but she remains a passive, terrified observer, and Smith never builds the level of suspense high enough to make readers worry for Kate. Smith's secondary characters are mostly defined with a few broad strokes--a marked contrast with the elaborately imposing Victorian edifice of Kensington Court itself, which is described with a loving thoroughness that might better have been lavished on its inhabitants. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.