Here's a lovely book that will let your mind wander

By MICHAEL PAKENHAM
BALTIMORE SUN
"The Great Pretenders: The True Stories Behind Famous Historical Mysteries," by Jan Bondeson (Norton, $25.95)
Anyone who has run across Bondeson's "Buried Alive," "The Two-Headed Boy and Other Medical Marvels" or others of his work -- in whole or in part -- will grab for this newest examination of immortal mysteries.
A professor at the University of Wales College of Medicine and a researcher of immense energy and apparently unquenchable curiosity, Bondeson here delves into a substantial number of the most enduring true-life mysteries of European history.
One involved the Duke of Portland at and around the turn of the 19th-20th centuries -- a nobleman devoted to solitude, and purported also to a second, parallel life as a London shopkeeper, complete with a family.
There is Prince Louis Charles, son of King Louis XVI of France, imprisoned by revolutionaries in the Temple Tower in Paris -- who might have been rescued, escaped or died.
The "Lost Dauphin" story has fascinated historians and armchair detectives for more than two centuries. Bondeson does the story -- and his others -- proud. One of those lovely books you can wander through at moments that call for distraction.