Perfect Family

Long-festering secrets erupt with devastating consequences to Connecticut's moneyed Carteret clan in Lewis's second novel (after Speak Softly, She Can Hear), a literate page-turner. When 24-year-old Pony, the family's daredevil golden girl, drowns while skinny-dipping at their Vermont lake house, her death leaves her year-old son, Andrew, an orphan\x97as well as a hornet's nest of troubling questions. Why had Pony begged big brother William to meet her in Vermont that day? Did someone else show up after they quarreled and William stormed off? Who is Andrew's father? And was Pony's death really an accident? Widowed patriarch Jasper Carteret III and bossy eldest daughter Tinker seem less interested in answers than damage control. But William, heartsick at whatever role his departure might have played in the tragedy, starts digging. Before long, some of his startling discoveries challenge his core beliefs about the people he thought he knew well. Lewis skillfully lures the reader through her narrative maze with plenty of plot twists\x97most of them credible until an over-the-top climax\x97without compromising a masterful portrait of a quirky New England family in crisis. (Apr.)