Rainbow's End

Brandewyne ( Heartland ) has researched a convincing setting, added a mystery to spark the momentum--and then squandered it on a run-of-the-mill romance. At a Boston convent in 1877 Josselyn O'Rourke is about to take her final vows when word arrives that her father has died in an explosion at the Colorado gold mine of which he was part owner. Red O'Rourke's will mandates that his daughter inherit only when she marries one of his male partners: Wylie Gresham, a ``southern gentleman,'' or Durango de Navarre, a scruffy, disreputable saloon owner. The fourth partner, Victoria Houghton, inherited her shares from her husband, who died in a mine accident. Since there has been a string of ``accidents,'' mutual suspicion runs rampant among the partners--including Red, who staged his own death to trick the saboteur into revealing himself. However, the mystery is shunted aside in favor of the predictably rocky romance of Durango and Josselyn, who dither endlessly about each other's guilt or innocence. Durango fits the pieces of the puzzle together to, as he says, ``create a whole that, however senseless, is at least finally comprehensible.'' Doubleday Book Club selection. (Nov.)