Notable Help the Poor Struggler

Martha Grimes is an American mystery writer who up till now has forsworn the traditional metier of her countrymen, the novel of action, in favor of dead-on English-village mysteries of the kind wrought by Britons a half-century ago. Her seven novels have all been named for actual pubs, most of them in the English countryside, and until Help the Poor Struggler they have involved a quirky trio: a stereotypically literary, sensitive bachelor detective from Scotland Yard, a fey, scholarly nobleman who has eccentrically given up his titles, and, usually, the nobleman's meddling, Wodehousian aunt. That arch setup proved charming in her early books but has worn a little thin, as Grimes seems to recognize.

Her new effort features a more pedestrian detective along with her stock characters, a deadly earnest tone and a climactic burst of violence befitting its story of long-calculated revenge. Although the setting remains British, Help the Poor Struggler is rather an American novel, with brooding and cynical overtones of Raymond Chandler ("It wasn't the pale skin of a man who'd not seen enough of the sun. It was more as if one had put a paintbrush to an emotion -- despair, desolation, whatever -- and tinged it in that sickly whitishgray"). Depth of characterization is not Grimes' strong suit, but she produces vital word pictures and manipulates her plot cleverly for maximal suspense and surprise.

AUGUST PEOPLE

by Ralph Graves

Doubleday; 327 pages; $16.95

In a socially conscious epoch, the fortunes of the fortunate seem irrelevant; in a time of ethnic narcissism, Wasps are out. Yet as Ralph Graves' canny, discerning work proves, the novel of manners is far from obsolete, and the population of boardrooms and island beaches is as compelling as it was in the Age of Irony (circa 1950).

The August People are 16 members of the Winderman family, gathering on some 50 acres of prime land in the last full month of summer. No. 17 is on the way: Ellen, married into the clan, is pregnant. What she first sees is a family bound by ritual and affection, led by the 70-year-old paterfamilias, Charles. But as temperatures and voices rise, unflattering revelations occur. The internecine tennis matches are actually contests of will: "Bryan, a fragile 18-year-old loser, walked to the net to shake hands with his uncle. Ellen was so proud of the open, pleasant look Bryan managed to maintain . . . She knew how much that look cost." The wishes of Grandfather are, in fact, imperious demands; the grumbling about local workmen disguises arrant and irrational prejudice.

Is it too late for Charles to change? Will the townie Anthony Balto be allowed to attend the Big Party? Who will become the new head of the Windermans once the old man is gone? The answers are not as predictable as they appear, nor are the Windermans. Graves aptly demonstrates that the well- trodden ground of John O'Hara and J.P. Marquand can still sustain a surprising amount of plant and animal life.