cover image The Suitor: A Novel of Suspense

The Suitor: A Novel of Suspense

Michael Allegretto. Simon & Schuster, $18.5 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-671-73644-6

This formulaic suspense thriller will disappoint fans of the Shamus award-winning author (for Death on the Rocks ) of the Jake Lomax series. Divorced artist Valerie Rowe invites bashful, socially inept Leonard Tully to lunch after he gets her purse back from a mugger. Valerie, with a cute eight-year-old son, a burgeoning career, a nurturing new lover and a pushy friend who owns an art gallery, has a full, satisfying life. Leonard has a van, a crippled and controlling mother, repressed sexual urges--and now, he believes, someone to love him. Little in the novel's characterization or plotting will surprise readers--all this is quite familiar, from the dangers that threaten Valerie, little Matthew and their friends to Leonard's cabin in the woods where events culminate. Allegretto moves his cardboard characters along predictable paths, demonstrating a measured prose style but no bravura. (Jan.)