Chicken Little Was Right

With an implausible plot and a cloyingly cute tone, this first novel fails to develop narrative momentum or to compel interest in its cast. Catherine (Cat) Wilde, who lives in an unidentified lakefront town and barely makes a living refinishing antiques, is devastated when a highway accident kills her daughter Laurie and son-in-law Andy. Since Laurie was first to die, her part of the estate was left to Andy, whose only will bequeathes everything to his parents, Mort and Daisy Snyder. The trouble is that Cat had lent her daughter her life savings to buy their home. When avaricious Mort refuses to pay her anything out of the settlement and Cat can't make the payments on her own house, she decides to rob a bank. Armed with a toy dagger, she takes a young mother and four-year-old daughter as hostages. Ensuing complications transform her victims into accomplices, involve organized crime and include two bombings, another kidnapping and the slaughter of Cat's beloved dog. Duck this one. (July)