The Eye of the Beholder

A former BBC reporter, author Marrin is not ready for prime time as a writer of mysteries. Heroine Jane, an employee of a British TV company, the ``Corporation,'' is anxious to prop up her sagging career by making a TV documentary on Nazi collaborators in France. Jane suspects a guard at the archives in Lorraine was murdered, to keep him from talking. She also suspects foul play when a French nobleman dies, and criminal mischief regarding his art collection. Eventually she starts to find connections between these disparate strands and Sir Miles Tremaine (ex-MI5, director of a posh art institute). Jane's sleuthing leads to a lukewarm conclusion that the reader has been expecting since relatively early on. There is no feeling for the ambience of locale in France, England or New York, and there is a positive dearth of action. (June)