The brits who do not induce -- nor disturb -- his slumbers

Author: By Robin W. Winks

Date: SUNDAY, January 25, 1998

Page: F2

Section: Books

Dorothy Simpson is dependably pleasing, even at her most acerbic. ``Once Too Often'' (Scribner, $21) is her 13th novel about the steady, exacting, and slightly dull Inspector Luke Thanet, and they are all of a high order. Whenever anyone asks me to suggest English whodunits and I learn that they have finished all the first tier of living writers (P. D. James, Ruth Rendell, and Elizabeth George -- who is not English, but very good at seeming so), I send them to S. T. Haymon (now dead) and Dorothy Simpson. Here, Thanet is called away from his daughter's wedding preparations to see whether a journalist has broken her neck by accident or with help. Thanet investigates. The plot thickens. Simpson manipulates. Thanet cogitates. The reader's attention never wanders. In the end, all makes sense, with a sound surprise or two. One sleeps well after.

Jeffrey Ashford is another of those dependable writers who seems never to quite win his due in this country. ``The Price of Failure'' (St. Martin's, $20.95) is at least his 33d book, each one plain, clear, and inexorable. We begin with a kidnapping in which the kidnappers want it thought that they have failed. Their plans appear to have leaked, and they put pressure on a decent detective constable who can tell them what they need to know about the police inquiries. We then follow the kidnappers and the policeman to their respective ends. Ashford's view of the police is grim and cynical, quite unlike Simpson's more benign perspective, but both clearly show how tiny, incremental moral decisions lead to success or failure.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles writes about a less disciplined, less orderly Britain, and her Inspector Bill Slider has a sharp tongue and a rueful wit not permitted to Simpson's or Ashford's coppers. In ``Killing Time'' (Scribner, $22), she takes Slider into the world of London prostitutes, pimps, nightclubs, and exotic dancers. Harrod-Eagles provides interesting characters, good dialogue, and a well-paced plot, and she uses Slider's somewhat confused love life to good advantage -- not for the padding lesser writers provide but as integral to the plot. This, her sixth book, tells me I want to read her whenever she is of a mind to let us have another.

Simon Brett has been writing steadily for many years. His main character, Charles Paris, is a slightly louche actor who just barely makes a steady living in the theater, and I have never warmed to him, despite faithfully following him through 17 or so of the cases thrust upon him. But of late Brett has created a new figure, Mrs. Melita Pargeter, and I quite like her. ``Mrs. Pargeter's Plot'' (Scribner, $21) is as good a place to start as any. A cross between Dorothy Dunnett (whom I do not care for) and Robert Barnard (for whom I have the highest admiration), Brett's Pargeter plots are very witty and markedly pleasant, especially to the flu-bound. Mrs. Pargeter confronts a dead body in her wine cellar; her builder is arrested for murder; Mrs. P decides the builder is innocent and sets out to prove it. Brett is given to comic names (the builder is Concrete), and despite Charles Dickens I detest this gambit, but otherwise I find Brett has become a comic mystery writer to reckon with.

I also generally detest -- no, that's too strong, let's say dislike -- ``historical mysteries,'' but I have been won over by Stephanie Barron, who has turned Jane Austen into a detective of sorts. ``Jane & the Wandering Eye'' (Bantam, $22.95) is the third, and best, of the alleged Austen journals to be ``edited'' by Barron for publication, and she maintains her ability to mimic Austen's style effectively if not so closely as to ruin the fun. The time is 1804, the focus is on a masquerade ball, and the real subject is Bath society. There are mock-scholarly footnotes, provided as an editor would, to explain charades and the ``morning call,'' and though the mystery, such as it is, is solved as much by happenstance as sleuthing, the whole thing is a pleasant romp, a bedtime cocoa or chamomile. Next month I'll be ready for a single malt, spies who are coming in from the cold, and even grappa with the Family, but it has been nice to sleep dreamless sleeps with these five calm British writers who know they needn't shout to get attention.