Books: Rosy Glow Dept.

LORD VANITY (467 pp.)—Samuel Shellabarger—Little, Brown ($3.95).

"Stir up the fire, Lucio . . . You have the whip and the little knife? Good . . . I don't believe he's Jack-fool enough to resist." But Richard Morandi, a bastard descendant of Stuart kings, is not one to let himself be castrated in front of his sweetheart without fighting back. Since it is Venice and the 18th century, Richard has a knife of his own up his sleeve, and he knows how to use it. Many a lesser novelist would be out of climaxes after Richard dispatches his enemy, but Novelist Samuel...