Now Claire has taken Melinda’s place and volunteered as needleworker to the restoration in a fitting disguise to mask her real intent - uncover exactly what befell Melinda, whom she believes is dead.

Immediately upon landing in England, Claire meets with a police detective who investigated Melinda’s disappearance and who confirms that the investigation is at a dead end. No one knows just what befell Melinda or whether she’s alive or dead. Melinda was a fearless free spirit who could have as easily gone off on a merry jaunt without notifying her loved ones as she could have met with foul play. She was something of a libertine, dallying with a succession of men and leaving broken hearts and devotees in her wake.

One of Melinda’s reputed lovers was Richard Lacey, heir to the Somerstowe historic legacy if not the Hall itself. Richard is the young, handsome architect on the restoration project whose forebear wrote the play in which Melinda appeared.

Claire realizes she must include Richard on her list of suspects, but that does not prevent her from finding him alluring, an attraction she resists but which ultimately proves to be mutual. Claire quickly becomes acquainted with the townspeople who had known Melinda and performed with her in the play and all the restoration volunteers, who have all returned to Somerstowe for another summer of working on the Hall.

Almost mystically Melinda’s murdered body is found, right in Somerstowe, and Claire must determine who killed her. By day she works restoring the Hall’s many tapestries and by night she joins the cast of the play, asks questions and slowly uncovers clues, a process that is complicated by her budding love affair with Richard and befuddled by her sightings of the Hall’s legendary ghosts.

Claire Godwin is a likeable and lively sleuth if a frustrating one. I did often wish she’d ask more and better questions. For example, when she’d finally gotten Richard to talk about his relationship with Melinda, he confessed that he had suspected Melinda of blackmailing him. Not once does Claire ask him what secret he held that would warrant blackmail.

The mystery lacks immediacy. The book opens one year after Melinda’s disappearance, and we never get any closer to understanding who she was. We learn a few things about her character and ways, but do we care at this point? It would have been much more interesting if the writer had given more exposition about Melinda. I was curious to know how such a seemingly flighty young woman would have the patience to learn needlework, much less pursue it to the degree of some expertise. For that matter, I would have enjoyed reading how Claire came to learn the art and why she did not practice it full-time instead of as merely an avocation.

And though the resolution of most mysteries, real or imagined, may involve some coincidence, that all the parties present the summer of Melinda’s disappearance should return to Somerstowe the following summer was too great a convenience for plausibility.

I suppose my major gripe with Memory and Desire is that it was not a very smart story. Claire is not required to do much detecting or analysis. Except for Richard, each of the suspects is so forthcoming with details and so available to her quest, the case does not present much of a challenge.

The writer does, however, conjure a vivid picture of the village and its townsfolk, and she knows her English history and antiquities well enough to convincingly create Somerstowe, the Hall, and its artifacts.

--Lillian Jackson