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THE TONTINE, by Thomas B. Costain (2 vols., 930 pp.; Doubleday; $5.95), is Author Costain's eighth novel, a Literary Guild choice for October, and may serve only one useful purpose: to popularize the fascinating gimmick referred to in the title. The tontine (rhymes with "on green"), a fad which keeps reappearing through history, combines the suspense of the $64,000 question with the finances of the pyramid club. In Costain's tontine, begun in England just after the Battle of Waterloo, people in each of eight age groups enter the setup at 100 guineas a head. The money and interest are invested for 20 years; the interest is split annually among the survivors. As others die, those left behind gleefully rake in more dough until one person takes all.
Into the youngest class of the Waterloo tontine went the children of Samuel Car boy and George Grace, two partners whose business marriage has ended in divorce owing to incompatibility. Alongside these wealthy kids, the daughter of Carboy's groom, Nell Groody, also joins. Then Author Costain relentlessly chronicles the lives of these participants, down to the tonteeniest detail. Carboy's daughter works her way through a series of polite flirtations (not a bedroom scene in 930 pages) from baronet's wife to duchess, while Grace's son parlays a naval career into a knighthood. After much 19th century history drifts by like a Bristol fog, Carboy's great-grandson and Grace's great-grand-bastard reconstitute the old partnership. In the end, of course, it is Nell, the groom's daughter, who wins. She dies after giving every tuppence to the poor.
Under Costain's pen, the tontine loses all drama and suspense, becomes simply a century-long marathon dance of unreal, Victorian marionettes.