The Dying Room

Giroux ( Death of a Dodo , etc.) turns away from her series hero, London attorney Robert Forsythe, to track the plight of a beleaguered young mother in this sluggish, melodramatic romantic mystery set in the small town of Hampton, Ontario. Karen Dancer, a career woman and widow in New York, brings her eight-year-old daughter, Jamie, to Hampton and the huge old house she lived in as a child. Soon Jamie's stuffed panda is discovered pitchforked in a barn and then her kitten is found eviscerated in the ``dying room,'' the downstairs bedroom that holds a childhood terror for Karen. Could someone be trying to scare Karen out of--or into--selling land she owns to a company that intends to build a nuclear power plant? Karen is pursued by two ardent swains as the threats escalate until finally Jamie is kidnapped. Many of Hampton's unpleasant characters who fear the outsiders a nuclear plant might bring to town are cast as red herrings to distract attention from the real culprit, a local killer whose deadly activities have raised some citizens' suspicions for years. (Nov.)