1 Author and subject are perfectly matched in Spark's novel Aiding and Abetting (first publ. Viking, 2000). In the disappearance of Lucky, seventh Earl of Lucan, accused of the murder of his nanny, Sandra Rivett, and the attempted murder of his wife in 19, Spark has found an ideal subject for her unusual talents. As Spark's narrator states, "the disappearance of Lucan partakes of the surrealistic realistic" (85). And so does Spark's novel.

2 Spark complicates the situation by giving Lucan a double, an impostor, thus raising issues of identity and imitation. Twenty-five years later, the changes wrought by a quarter of a century of ageing, augmented by plastic surgery, render police investigators' "identikit" difficult to identify. If either man were apprehended, he could claim to be the impostor. Spark gives the situation psychological ramifications by having Lucan and his double both seek the guidance of psychiatrist Hildegard Wolf in Paris. Wolf has theories about which man is the true "Lucky," but she cannot be sure—any more than the reader can. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Hildegard Wolf is herself an impostor. Born Beate Pappenheim, she has become the "Blessed Beate Pappenheim, the stigmatic of Munich" (28). Using her menstrual blood to simulate stigmata, she has posed as a female latter-day Christ. Miracles have been attributed to her, and funds have accrued by fraud. Thus both patient and doctor are bound together by blood—blood money—as each has the other over the proverbial barrel. They both offer the fascination that the abnormal mind affords for the normal. Spark's subject is perfectly suited to her matter-of-fact morbidity.

3 The problem is that, since the Lucan doubles have confessed to her, Wolf can be accused of "aiding and abetting," but she cannot spill the beans on them for fear that they will expose her fraud. Like Lucan, she "disappears," mystifying even her partner, Jean-Pierre Roget of Paris—just as she did her boyfriend Heinrich in Munich. The situation is enhanced by the fact that two amateur sleuths give chase to Lucky Lucan. Lacey, daughter of Maria Twickenham, an old friend of Lord Lucan, joins forces with another old friend, Joseph Murray, as they go on a romantic manhunt. Both Luckys travel the world, collecting funds from wealthy old friends. The problem here is that these old friends are dying off, leaving the Lucans in the lurch. Lacey aims not to capture Lord Lucan, but to write an account of his escapades, thus creating the requisite metafictionality for the novel, as she searches through old clippings for the facts of the case and photos of the accused.

4 Spark's subject lends itself perfectly to her distinctively realistic surrealism, as it builds to a bizarre conclusion. Her ironic ending is worthy of the brilliant British comic novelist Evelyn Waugh himself. Aiding and Abetting is detection with a difference.