The Captive

With marginal success, veteran novelist Holt ( The India Fan ) returns to a familiar scenario by depicting a hardy young 19th-century Englishwoman who is embroiled in murder and exotic adventures. When a ferocious storm off the African coast capsizes the vessel on which she is sailing, Rosetta Cranleigh is rescued by a deckhand who admits, after their lifeboat drifts to a remote island, that he is actually Simon Perrivale, a nobleman's illegitimate child, forced to flee England after being wrongly accused of slaying one of his father's other sons. Taken hostage by pirates, the pair escape after being sold to a Turkish pasha. Because Simon dares not return home, Rosetta tries to identify the real killer by joining the mysterious Perrivale household as governess to Simon's impossible niece. Nearly every aspect of this story is unbelievable or time-worn, except for the touching scenes showing Rosetta gradually winning her pupil's affection. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selections. (Oct.)