Guilty Conscience

Guilty Conscience is the final novel in the long-running series featuring London solicitor Rosa Epton. A well-to-do middle-aged woman, Evelyn Henshaw, comes to Rosa's office and demands that, in the event of her disappearance, her husband be investigated for murder. Rosa is more than a little doubtful. Hesitant to take on this new client, she is drawn in when Mr. Henshaw one day arrives at her office, claiming his wife has disappeared. And when the young lodger living in the couple's home turns up dead, Rosa must unearth the skeletons of the couple's troubled marriage and fit together the pieces of a complicated puzzle.
Readers who have enjoyed Michael Underwood's smooth writing and intricate storytelling will regret the end of this master's career, even as they savor his final mystery.

Uncharacteristically, Underwood ( Rosa's Dilemma ) delivers here a lifeless piece of crime fiction with a claustrophobic plot and a two-dimensional cast. In the London office of lawyer Rosa Epton, Evelyn Henshaw accuses her husband Ralph of murdering his first wife and suggests that he is now targetting her. When Rosa meets Ralph at the Henshaw's country house, he accuses Evelyn of killing his spouse so that she could marry him. But meanwhile, Evelyn has disappeared and the body of their lodger, Stefan, is pulled from the pond. Further evidence suggests a romantic link between the dead Stefan and missing Evelyn. Who should Rosa believe? Better yet, who should she take on as a client: a missing woman or a possible multiple murderer? Glossing over the legal technicalities of Rosa's case, Underwood instead focuses on his heroine's tedious romance with the jet-setting Peter Chen. Underwood scants the main characters in this frustrating work, taking his reader's attention for granted.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

London lawyer Rosa Epton (The Seeds of Murder, etc.) is visited one day by Evelyn Henshaw--wealthy, overdressed, and claiming to be in danger from second husband Ralph, who, according to her, had disposed of his first wife, Jean. Evelyn suspects that Ralph is involved in an affair with his secretary Frances Figgord and wants to insure an investigation if she, Evelyn, should die. This strange interview becomes even stranger when Evelyn disappears; Ralph Henshaw turns up, wanting to become Rosa's client; and the body of young Stefan Michalowski, seemingly a prot‚g‚ of Evelyn's, is pulled from a pond on her estate. After a fire at the estate house and another fatality, Ralph Henshaw is arrested, greatly upsetting his daughter Anthea. Rosa makes a few trips to Evelyn's sister in France before a series of unbelievable confrontations end in further tragedy--and a messy solution. None of the off-the-wall characters here rings any truer than does the makeshift plot. Disappointing stuff from a writer who's often more than just barely readable. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.