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A Very Private Enterprise
Elizabeth Ironside
#UB9042
Paperback, 323 pages; 2008 (1984)
$14.95
 Members' Price: $12.71
It's no secret anymore that "Elizabeth Ironside" is in fact Lady Catherine Manning, wife of Sir David Manning, who was until recently the British ambassador to the United States. That position was actually the culmination of Sir David's long career in England's diplomatic service in India and elsewhere—and Lady Catherine was right alongside him, being a good "diplomatic spouse" and, clearly, taking notes like crazy. Those notes came in very handy once she started writing her first novel, A Very Private Enterprise, about the murder, in India, of a stuffy British diplomat. (I can't help imagining the very proper Catherine Manning, smiling her way through some endless diplomatic dinner party, while mentally knocking off the guests.) The settings—from Bombay back alleys to monasteries high in the Himalayas—are exotic and fascinating. As with all "Elizabeth Ironside" books, A Very Private Enterprise is elevated far above the standard for the genre by the extraordinary acuity of the author's observations, the elegance of her prose, and (in the words of one critic) "a luminous intelligence" that just jumps off the page.
(MT)
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