Foetal Attraction

Like a literary meringue, Lette's newest (after The Llama Parlor, 1991) is light, fluffy and scarcely memorable. Madeline (Maddy) Wolfe, a free-spirited six-foot Australian with cropped red hair and a nose ring, is giving birth in an inner-city London hospital. As she goes through the agonies of childbirth, she looks back on her affair with Alexander Drake, a wildly popular TV zoologist. Maddy first meets Alex in Sydney, where he is investigating the sex lives of giant cleaner wrasses. Deeply in lust, she follows him to London. Maddy settles into his flat and takes a course at an upscale cooking school. There, over the haggis and kidney pie, she meets her soon-to-be best friend, Gillian Cassells, who's honing the skills she'll need to catch ""Marquis Right."" Upon Alex's return, Maddy finds herself thrown to the social lions, for whom a swell evening out might include a sneak peak at Robert Maxwell's autopsy. In the midst of her misery, Maddy learns that Alex is married--and that she is pregnant. Lette writes a lively prose, but her wit, raw and frenetic, is probably an acquired taste. (Apr.)