Belying its label, Colleen McCullough's new chart-topper [An Indecent Obsession] is in the mould of one of those improving tales for young ladies with which our grandmothers were expected to educate their souls. "Or, Sister Langtry chooses the Path of Duty" would have made an excellent sub-title, containing enough of a clue perhaps to save the reader from spending the whole volume worrying mildly about the identity of the "indecent obsession" and drawing various, consistently wrong, conclusions. In fact, McCullough scatters clues liberally throughout, though that "indecent" has served to throw us off the scent. In the last paragraph she spells it all out; "duty" is the obsession in question, though McCullough adds, in an attempt at profundity, that "duty is only another name for love". Is that why it is indecent? There seems to be no other justification in the novel's pages for this brand of heavy...