A somewhat odd book, in that about half of it is an account of the disappearance of Lord Lucan ca. 1974 in the wake of the murder of the nanny of his children and a violent assault on his estranged wife, and half of it is an extended account of the libel litigation that engulfed Private Eye, the muckracking magazine that employed the author, that arose out of what was, frankly, a tangential issue in the case. What salvages the book in the end is a rather thoughtful analysis of the relative guilt or innocence of Lord Lucan, with a theory that strikes a reader as reasonable and plausible. ( )