Scared to Death

Staub (Live to Tell) explores the conflict every parent feels between reasonable care for the safety of their children and paranoia in this compelling, well-crafted suspense novel. Elsa Cavalon, who's trying to rebuild her life in Groton, Conn., 15 years after the kidnapping of her seven-year-old adopted son, Jeremy, and his later reported murder, doubts her sanity even as she worries that a stalker is prowling around the bedroom of her new seven-year-old adopted daughter, Renny. Meanwhile, Marin Quinn, a Manhattan socialite whose life has been crushed by the arrest of her congressman husband, finds that difficulties raising her daughters alone remind her of the trauma of secretly giving up Jeremy at birth. But long-missing Jeremy isn't dead, and his jealousy as he secretly watches the two families that have moved on without him drives a story that raises fears about losing loved ones almost any reader can sympathize with. (Jan.)