Picks and Pans Review: The Bolter

By ELLEN SHAPIRO, MICHELLE GREEN, KIM HUBBARD, RICHARD EISENBERG

UPDATED 07/06/2009 at 01:00 AM EDT • Originally published 07/06/2009 at 01:00 AM EDT

by Frances Osborne |

    

REVIEWED BY MICHELLE GREEN

BIOGRAPHY
When the author was 13, the book White Mischief—about decadent pre-WWII settlers in Kenya—told her what her parents never had: her great-grandmother Idina Sackville was a serial divorcer who left her sons in England to become the "high priestess" of the scandalous "Happy Valley Set." Here Osborne mines family secrets to bring Idina to life. Intoxicating.