Good Girls

A formulaic plot and stereotypical characters make up the bulk of Young's first book for Mira. Cutting to the chase with the assassination of Jack Sullivan, Mississippi's governor-elect, the author proceeds to fill the subsequent 400 pages with the three women who'd love to see Jack dead: his wife, Taylor; her sister, Suzanne; and their cousin, Annie. To his adoring public, Jack is charisma personified. To his family, he's slime. He rapes and impregnates Suzanne on the day of his wedding, bullies Taylor into alcoholism and drives Annie's mom to suicide, all while climbing to the top of the political ladder on the backs of his prominent in-laws. It's rather annoying to be reminded of that family's power, intelligence, toughness and prominence, when the women themselves are strangely passive in the face of their victimization by an evil caricature. (Jan.)