Billy

Whitley Strieber. Berkley Trade Pub, $5.99 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-425-12955-5

Twelve-year-old Billy Neary is abducted from an Iowa mall and driven toward L.A. by violent, 40-ish Barton Royal, a man obsessed with pubescent boys. This is ``by turns gripping, plodding, truly horrifying and, finally, falsely sunny,'' said PW . (Oct.)

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