Good Behaviour is a tale of appetites, pursued and thwarted, written in a style that lusts after the lethal aims tucked into civilized exchange, yokes mournful, sensuous description with analytic dismemberment, and sifts a high-handed 18th century rhythm through 1920s speediness. Time After Time gives us the same world, moved from the '20s to the present—aged, sour, full of cracks and grudges. Keane's writing seems tainted by the woes of her world: there's too much expositional clutter and fuss; stage directions dwarf the moments they're supposed to set up. It's a domestic drama of manners (Keane is scathingly funny, but rarely comic) into which a World War II thriller intrudes, unsettling the writer's balance 'nearly as much as it unsettles her characters' lives….

It's Leda who tears wounds open and sets moral consequence whirling in a house where dust is "heavy as fur" and each worn...