I'LL BE WATCHING YOU

With red herrings this fishy, how come Kane's brainy heroic lovers don't figure out the psychopathic stalker's identity until almost too late? That's the real enigma in Kane's hardcover romantic suspense debut. When gorgeous psychologist and talk show host Taylor Halstead goes to bed with gorgeous attorney Reed Watson, Kane (Run for Your Life , etc.) is in her element: "He was naked. She could feel every incredible inch of him, hot and hard and desperate to get inside her." The writer is a pro in the romance department, offering ample tenderness and lubricity, and the details of the talk show world are well researched and convincing. But the suspense plot relies on the predictable and improbable. The book opens with a brutal near-rape scene involving Taylor and her cousin's gorgeous but evil boyfriend, Gordon Mallory. Kane seems to dispose of Gordon (along with Taylor's beloved cousin) in a yacht explosion, only to introduce his egregious identical twin, Jonathan, several pages later. Among other unconvincing developments, the twins turn out to be their rich dad's illegitimate sons and one was repeatedly molested by their stepmother. Who's stalking Taylor? Is it Jonathan? No, it's got to be Gordon, right? But wasn't he dead? Where's he hiding? Thank goodness for the steamy sex, because the answers don't hold water. Agent, Andrea Cirillo. (Jan. 18)