The author of A Scandal in Belgravia takes on skullduggery in literary society. Two minor Yorkshire literary figures came to an unhappy ending more than 50 years ago, never having achieved any great literary acclaim. Why then does greedy Gerald Suzman want to establish a fan club in their honor? The redoubtable author of A Scandal in Belgravia ( LJ 7/91) describes suspicious events surrounding a Yorkshire literary club formed to honor two distinctly unremarkable local writers who have been dead 50 years. Detective Charlie Peace fears an elderly woman's life may be in danger. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. Scotland Yard is keeping tabs on suave, wily antique-book dealer Gerald Suzman, involved in several lucrative literary scams over the years and now the creator of the Sneddon Fellowship, celebrating the novels of Susannah Sneddon. The Fellowship's center is the bleak farmhouse in West Yorkshire where, 50 years ago, Susannah and her brother, Joshua, who also wrote--unsuccessfully- -perished by murder and suicide. Now Suzman, capitalizing on and feeding the renewed interest in Sneddon's work, has invited fans to a weekend in the village of Micklewike, where some locals still remember the reclusive pair. The Yard sends low-key detective Charlie Peace (Fatal Attachment, etc.) as an undercover observer, and he meets some odd and interesting guests--crisply likable 70- ish Lettie Farraday, whose still living mother cleaned house for the slovenly Susannah; very distant relative Randolph Sneddon--who knows nothing but valiantly fields questions; the unattractive Potter-Hodges, who owns a collection of Susannah's letters to an old friend; beautiful blond Gillian Parkin, who's writing a thesis on Susannah; and a host of others. All goes swimmingly--with much talk of new editions and rehashing of old gossip--until Suzman is found bludgeoned to death in his nearby cottage.... A lot of dull alibi-searching will take place before the killer is tagged, but that's scarcely Barnard's focus in this leisurely, occasionally sluggish ramble through the byways of minor literary fame and fortune. He has fun with the poseurs and aspirers--and so will the reader. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. What better victim in a Robert Barnard novel than the literary poseur? And what better place to find such a person than in a society set up to honor the dubious talents of Susannah and Joshua Sneddon? Not quite in the league of the Brontes, Susannah and Joshua toiled at their creative tasks in a remote cottage in a tiny Yorkshire village in the early years of this century. Neither wrote great literature, but Susannah's work was always the more popular. Perhaps that's why Joshua one day killed his sister with an ax and shot himself in the head. Now, many years later, there's a surprising new interest in the Sneddons, seemingly inspired by entrepreneur Gerald Suzman. Suzman has bought the Sneddon homestead, with plans to open it as a museum and to found a literary society known as the Sneddon Fellowship. Sneddon fans from as far away as America, Norway, and Japan have gathered at Suzman's invitation for the inaugural Sneddon Weekend. Detective Constable Charlie Peace has come, too, intrigued by Suzman's sudden literary interest in the obscure Yorkshire siblings. Suzman's history indicates a far greater affinity for wealth than for literature, so he must have discovered an unlikely source of profit in the Fellowship. But where? Charlie fears that elderly American Lettie Farraday may know too much for her own good. Lettie, who has returned to the village of her birth for the first time in more than fifty years, is the only conferee who personally knew the Sneddons. Too much knowledge may be dangerous. To read a new Robert Barnard novel is to appreciate once again the extraordinary range and depth of one of the greatest of contemporary crime writers. A Hovering of Vultures is vintage Barnardfrom a writer at the peak of his powers.