The Nursery

In a credulity-straining debut driven by a nearly hysterical plot, Culbertson pushes a whole array of hot buttons: childless couples who want children, single pregnant girls who don't, child abuse, unsavory adoption schemes and child kidnapping. When Joe and Caroline Denecke's newly adopted son, Zach, is found dead in his crib, police on their island community in Long Island Sound suspect that Caroline, succumbing to fatigue and stress, smothered him, though she may not remember doing so. Caroline insists that Zach was abducted and that a different, already dead, child was left in his place. Joe isn't much help, tending to believe that Caroline's conviction that it's not Zach is a form of denial. Freelance writer Diana Larsen, researching a magazine article on adoption, has probed a local home for unwed mothers and only she takes Caroline seriously: ""if it were true, what a story that would be!"" As Caroline has trouble convincing others of her story (despite proof in the autopsy), a former maternity house resident calls Diana with ""something important"" to reveal. Caroline and Diana team up to hunt Zach (and a good article), the number of supposedly accidental deaths increases and the plot dips into villainy as bizarre as it is gruesome. The consolation prize is that blunt, assertive, risk-taking Diana exercises her gift for annoying those around her without similarly wearing on the reader. (Nov.)