The Plot Against Roger Rider [is] by Julian Symons …, who is probably the foremost scholar of crime and thriller fiction now writing. Actually, there are two overlapping plots, one against Geoffrey Parradine, Rider's old friend, currently sleeping with Rider's wife; and one against Rider himself. There is a large cast of characters, and the action sweeps quickly from England to Spain and finally to Italy. disappearances and/or murders abound; there is a fetching Spanish detective who dreams of consuming bitter with his confréres of Scotland Yard and a pair of tiresome young lovers who, by pushing here and pulling there precipitate a solution to the eventual disappearance and death of Rider. It's an excellent, crackling read, but the structure is a little too academic; the cunning brain of the author of Bloody Murder is too busy with timetables rather than people; and the sociological orientations of...