Charmed Circle

Grand Central Publishing, 1999. Very Good. A short but wonderful holiday on a Caribbean island cements an unlikely fri endship among seven otherwise dissimilar people. One woman, a young doctor based in London, falls in love with a mysterious dark stranger. Another fal ls for the doctor's discarded lover. A third, a socialite from Charleston, is determined to capture the judge whose gay lover is murdered. Who is the killer? No one knows until one of the charmed seven strikes again. Enjoying this novel is like whipping up meringueAsimple ingredients, a little dilig ent beating, and voil?!Asnowy, tasty peaks. At its best this novel harks ba ck to the wonderful genre of Helen MacInnesAstrong heroines, distant locale s, danger, and mysterious strangers. Light but not frivolous, exotic but no t remote, passionate but not randy, this confection is perfect leisure read ing.