Fiction review: Four mysteries

If familiarity breeds contempt, proximity can generate curiosity — and danger.

And that's what happens in "Tigerlily's Orchids" (257 pages, Scribner, $26), the latest stand-alone novel of psychological suspense by the prolific Ruth Rendell.

In Lichfield House, a building of resident-owned flats in north London, live a motley collection of folks. There's Stuart Font, a handsome if somewhat narcissistic young man who has inherited money; Rose Preston-Jones, a spinster who lives with her little dog, McPhee, and works in the field of alternative medicine; Marius Potter, a teacher and lover of classical history; Michael Constantine, who writes a medical column for a newspaper, and his wife, Katie; Olwen Curtis, a retiree determined to drink herself to death; and college students Sophie, Molly and Noor, who share a flat. In a separate flat live creepy caretaker Wally Spurlock and his wife, Richenda.

Like most people, each has a secret, and Stuart's is his affair with fashion writer Claudia Livorno. After Claudia's husband, Freddy, learns of the relationship, he attacks Stuart, and Stuart's passion for Claudia cools and refocuses on the mysterious Asian girl, whom he calls Tigerlily, who lives nearby and acts as a catalyst for the exquisitely paced drama that Rendell creates.

Without a murder, this would be an unusual entry in Rendell's large and impressive body of work. But the larger issue in "Tigerlily's Orchids" is secrecy and self-deception, and in laying it all bare, Rendell once again creates an addictive read in which the characters are drawn and defined by the author's wry observations.

Caerphilly, Va.: home of the wacky, the murderous and the sleep-deprived.

As anyone who has read Reston writer Donna Andrews' comic mystery series set in the fictional eastern Virginia town knows, hilarity and homicide go hand in hand, but exhaustion?

Welcome to "The Real Macaw" (320 pages, Minotaur Books, $24.99), the 13th installment in Andrews' series featuring blacksmith Meg Langslow.

As the novel opens, Meg is feeding the twin boys born to her and husband Michael Waterston four months ago when she hears a ruckus downstairs — at 2 a.m. Her dad and some of his friends, hearing that Caerphilly's mayor has ordered that the status of the town's animal shelter be changed from no-kill to kill, have absconded with scores of animals and have brought them to Meg's farmhouse. Among the new residents are dozens of cats and dogs, assorted small rodents and a particularly foul-mouthed macaw.

The problem: Parker Blair, a furniture-store owner and something of a tomcat who has agreed to transport the critters to foster homes in a large truck, failed to show up. And when he turns up dead, suspicion falls on two of his girlfriends, Vivian Forrest and Louise Dietz. But when Meg discovers that the town, thanks to the mayor's shenanigans, is neck-deep in debt, another motive for Blair's murder arises.

As always, Andrews laces this entertaining whodunit with wit, a fine storyline and characters we've come to know and love. And that macaw? Perhaps a voyeur, but certainly no birdbrain.

Ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and Chihuahuas that go "yip" in the night.

Chihuahuas? In Esri Allbritten's debut mystery, "Chihuahua of the Baskervilles" (288 pages, Minotaur Books, $23.99), the Chihuahua in question is dead — but apparently not gone.

In Manitou Springs, Colo., 69-year-old Charlotte Baskerville has made a fortune from her business, Petey's Closet, which sells clothes for small dogs. But one night, she hears Petey, who has been dead a year, barking and then sees what she believes to be his ghost. It's not long before word of the event reaches the offices of Tripping, a magazine devoted to haunted-sites tourism.

Three of its staffers show up at Charlotte's house and meet the other residents: Charlotte's loathsome husband, Thomas; their granddaughter Cheri, who has a drinking problem; Ellen, Charlotte's disgruntled employee; and Ivan, a Russian immigrant who trains one of Charlotte's living Chihuahuas, Lila (the other, Chum, is a senior who spends most of his time in Charlotte's room).

Strange, but harmless enough — until Thomas, pursuing the ghost, runs into the street and is struck and killed by a car. Has Charlotte concocted an imaginative plan to rid herself of her husband, or has someone else, or is his death a freak of supernature? The Tripping trio is determined to dig up the truth.

Packed with paranormal humor, a bevy of eccentric suspects and an amusing plot that includes a coffin race, "Chihuahua of the Baskervilles" is a treat for dog lovers, aficionados of the bizarre and fans of unusual mysteries, all of whom just might sit up and beg Allbritten for her next entry.

All small Southern towns have their secrets. And most have a garden club, in which the priorities are often horticulture, good works and gossip — in that order.

In "The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies" (304 pages, Berkley Prime Crime, $25.95), the second in Susan Wittig Albert's series set in Darling, Ala., at the start of the Great Depression, secrets are laid bare and mysteries are solved in a quaint, genteel and pleasurable way.

Old Miss Hamer has lived as a recluse for many years, but the naked ladies (a form of lily) bloom spectacularly in her yard. When two youngish women arrive from Chicago for a visit, the Dahlias (the garden-club ladies) are curious about them. One, Nona Jean Jamison, is Miss Hamer's niece; the other is her friend Lily Lake. The Dahlias soon learn that the two formerly had a vaudeville act as the Naughty and Nice sisters, but it becomes apparent that they've come to Darling to hide out. And the Dahlias are determined to learn why. In the end, secrets are laid bare, an old mystery is solved and all comes right.

Albert is a prolific author or co-author of three other quite different series, but her work shares two exceptional qualities in addition to the absorbing yarns she spins: Her characters are drawn with depth and kindness, and her settings are rich with well-researched detail. The Dahlias series conforms to her high standard, with characters familiar to anyone of a certain age who grew up in the South, as well as wonderfully rendered descriptions of life in the Depression, when people rallied around each other in travail, whether personal or financial.

In this pleasant series, Albert reminds us of the duty of caring and the joys that can result. A visit to Darling is a trip into the past, certainly, but also a lesson for the present.