God Bless the Child

Former TV news producer Bailey Bender, the heroine of this sensitive but formulaic novel, has abandoned her New York City career in TV news for a new life working in a bookstore (and ambivalently dating Mack, a recovering alcoholic Vietnam vet) on Long Island's eastern tip, but it takes two intertwined mysteries to bring happiness within reach. Against the advice of her sharp-witted, impossible mother, Bailey is trying to locate the baby she gave up for adoption 20 years ago. Meanwhile, the body of a pregnant Vassar woman turns up at the summer house of the rich Prinze family, and suspicion falls on the dead woman's lover, spoiled, gorgeous Charlie Prinze, whose father, a TV columnist, has old connections to Bailey. She gets involved in the case, which leads her to discover her son's identity, and becomes an honorary member of the Prinze family. While Bailey and Mack grow closer, neatly parallel subplots trace the relationships between mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. There are interesting, believable characters and dilemmas here, but Feldman's sixth novel (after Rearview Mirror) traps them in an overly tidy plot. (May)