Hannie Richards

Mirroring the exclusivity of a gentlemen's club, London's sumptuous Hope Club admits only women. Among them is tall, attractive Hannie Richards, a professional smuggler who drops in periodically from adventures around the world: the West Indian island where she braved earthquakes and imprecations to smuggle a crucial will back to England; Central America, where she eluded ground and air attacks with a child the Vatican thinks might be the new Messiah. In her latest escapadesent to South America by a dying millionaire for a plant he hoped might be his cureHannie's judgment has been uncharacteristically clouded by her stay-at-home husband's first infidelity, and a few tactical errors have landed her in a Brazilian jail. Her friends at the Club dispatch to her rescue a dashing fellow smuggler who is not only ingenious but also charming; he frees her from her marriage as well as from jail. Bailey (All the Days of My Life mixes stock ingredientswealth, intrigue, Prince Charming, female bondingwith cardboard characters in cliched predicaments and unconvincing locales, resulting in an unabsorbing fantasy. (March 6)