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Aiding and Abetting
Muriel Spark
#UC2652
Paperback, 166 pages; 2002 (2001)
$11.00
 Members' Price: $9.35
British class drama took on gruesome dimensions in the case of Lord "Lucky" Lucan. In 1974, Richard Bingham, the seventh Earl of Lucan, meant to kill his estranged wife but, by mistake, succeeded in killing his children's nanny. He disappeared, which led to speculation that his aristocratic social circle hid him. Others said it was suicide. He was declared dead in 1999 and the case was never solved. Under Muriel Spark's famously deft pen, Lucky Lucan resurfaces, and becomes the starting point for a dark but swift-running comic novel filled with lovers, frauds, doubles, and, of course, a murderer. Long after the case is closed, two men, both claiming to be the wanted nobleman, present themselves to prominent Paris psychiatrist Hildegard Wolf. Both Lucans, it turns out, know Wolf, too, is not what she seems. Shifting lightly between England and France, the masterful Spark employs memorable characters and artful revelation to craft an engrossing literary puzzle.
(BB)
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