By art and artifice Isabelle Holland first establishes the pastoral ambience of life in a great English country house, then sends out chills of bewilderment and apprehension as that life is seen to be filled with the darkly unexpected [in "The deMaury Papers."]…

[This] is the stuff of suspense, of course, and Miss Holland makes the most of it.

As always, it is next to impossible to put down a Holland mystery until the last thread has been untangled. At that point one is likely to sigh, "Of course, I should have guessed." But one never does.