SUSPICION.<i> By Robert McCrum</i> .<i> W. W. Norton: 292 pp., $23</i>

The finely layered life of an English village is such a fertile setting for the deliciously illicit that it is very nearly cliched. Writers from Agatha Christie to P. D. James have made it clear to us that the English have been busily sinning out in the hinterlands for generations, probably since the days of William the Conqueror.

Indeed, adultery, duplicity and homicide seem as intrinsically British as tea and crumpets. But rarely have these themes been treated as elegantly, which is to say in such a beautifully British way, as they are by Robert McCrum in “Suspicion.”

For what could be more British than understatement? This is a powerful book, but its power, even its mayhem, is quiet, civilized, somehow. Much of this results from the artfully conceived voice of the narrator and protagonist, Julian Whyte.

Julian is a barrister, bachelor and leading citizen of the tiny village of Mansfield, in the south of England. He has made a very nice little life for himself, and if he is a trifle ossified, it is a small price to pay for comfort, respectability and order. He is the district coroner, and those duties provide the only irregularity in his existence. An unexpected telephone call almost always means an accidental death or a suicide, but Julian is unruffled by these tasks. Subtext runs deep here; his comfort in death’s presence foreshadows much. Julian’s marital status is not due to any lack of interest in women, but rather to his lack of willingness to expose himself emotionally. Ultimately, his relationships “never seem to work out,” but we get the feeling that even this does not distress him unduly. Julian simply sails on, serene as the Queen Mary--until the arrival of his brother changes everything.

Raymond is everything his brother Julian isn’t: impulsive, disheveled, passionate, idealistic. An expatriate communist for years, he has returned to England to write his memoirs, most improbably to Mansfield, where his brother has established himself. And if that were not unsettling enough, Raymond has brought his beautiful young, formerly East German wife, Kristina, and their two children.

Julian plays an avuncular role, finding suitable housing and trying to ease the way for the newcomers, but the village is uneasy. Hatred for things German still runs deep. Rumors abound. Are Raymond and Kristina communist spies?

Meanwhile, to Julian’s consternation, he finds himself strongly attracted to Kristina. She is sophisticated, stylish, sultry--and, as his brother’s wife, the ultimate in forbidden fruit. As he begins to realize the weakness of his brother’s marriage, the fruit becomes tantalizingly available, and Julian finds himself inexorably lured from his carefully constructed battlements into an area of extreme vulnerability. Even as he is tempted to cuckold his own brother, he maintains his role as Raymond’s advisor and confidant--creating a maze of guilt and betrayal from which escape is all but impossible.

We learn the aspects of both brothers’ characters that they would most like to keep hidden and we watch uncomfortably as both are lessened by their desperate attempts to hold onto Kristina. The politics that controlled Raymond’s life ring hollow to others and to himself in the post-Berlin Wall era, and we learn that his ideals have taken a tawdry backseat to his personal life. Julian, meanwhile, loses every shred of his rectitude and we find his barrister’s mind is easily adaptable to deception and conspiracy.

Julian as narrator is a fascination, clinical in outlining both his brother’s failings and his own. McCrum manages to let Julian provide information to the reader obliquely, almost inadvertently, as a patient would to a therapist--it is a most sophisticated and satisfying novelistic device.

Yet it is Kristina who is arguably McCrum’s most skillfully drawn character. She sees these disparate brothers as only a woman can, understanding their underlying similarities as much as their obvious differences. Not surprisingly, they both love her. But does she love either of them? “You really want me, don’t you?” she asks Julian with a sigh.

The result of all this is a riveting, complex psychological tapestry of sibling rivalry, love and hate. Violence is inevitable, building like a summer thunderstorm, but it erupts in unforeseen directions, with tragic result.

McCrum, a distinguished London editor, establishes himself here as a master of psychological suspense. He plays the themes beautifully: The introduction of foreign elements into public and private lives, the vulnerability of love and the release of long-held emotion are all threaded through a clever and chillingly believable plot. Indeed, the formidable P. D. James would appreciate this civilized nightmare of fraternal bond gone bad. And thriller aficionados will be pleasantly surprised to discover that she could not have rendered it better herself.