SOURCE: "All the Best Houses Have Ghosts," in New York Times Book Review, January 6, 1991, p. 18.

In the following review of The Cavalier Case, Wallach considers Fraser's contribution to crime fiction.

It's hard to fathom, but there are authors who relax from writing books by writing different books. Larry McMurtry took six weeks off from Lonesome Dove to write Desert Rose, one of his best novels. Agatha Christie, in among 60 full-length mysteries, 19 short-story collections and 14 plays, wrote romance novels as Mary Westmacott. William Buckley seems to relax, if at all, by writing thrillers; Anne Rice writes erotic novels as A. N. Roqueture. And we all know the Rev. Charles Dodgson, who relaxed from mathematical treatises by writing the best children's books of all as Lewis Carroll.

Lady Antonia Fraser is a star member of this industrious group. Her vast biographies of Mary, Queen of Scots and Oliver Cromwell are...