The Serpent's Tooth

On July 9, 1985, tobacco heiress Margaret Benson, her daughter and the grandson she had adopted legally as her own were blown up by a car bomb in Naples, Fla.; only the daughter survived. Benson's father and husband were hard-driving men obsessed with success and not close to their children, whereas she was an indulgent parent who lavished presents and money on her offspring. Her son Steven had no head for business and, repeatedly bankrolled by his mother, failed again and again. When she learned that he had defrauded her, she made plans to cut him out of her will, so he assembled and placed the explosives that killed her, a crime for which he is serving two life sentences, to run consecutively, plus 37 years for attempted murder and arson. The skill of Andersen (The Book of People, The Name Game makes this familiar, highly publicized story taut and interesting. Author tour. (June)