Where Is the Baby?

Vale-Allen (Night Magic) delivers an upbeat if clichéd tale of a woman who manages to overcome a horrific early childhood. In 1970, a five-year-old girl, who only knows her name as Humaby, escapes from a locked van and the clutches of two sickos, Wolf and Toadman, and alerts the authorities that a kidnapped baby was also among their victims. That child is quickly recovered and restored to its parents, while Humaby begins to attempt to integrate herself into a world with kindness, toys, and bathing. Her plight tugs at the heart strings of several who encounter her, and she’s eventually placed as a foster child with a Connecticut couple who are both doctors and rename her Faith. Readers should be prepared for minimal mystery and some stilted prose (“Swimming in the now-shallow depths of her interior like a tiny fish was her death wish”). (Aug.)