Who Should Melissa Marry?

Book packager Bill Adler's newest and perhaps most banal brainchild reprises the format of his 1984 mystery, Who Killed the Robins Family? by offering a $10,000 reward for the ``best'' essay in response to its title question. At the center of this cliche-laden mystery/romance is beautiful Melissa Bonner, a 25-year-old Seattle TV sportscaster. The candidates for her hand in marriage are ``breathtaking'' 32-year-old quarterback Barry Ford; the more mature Jonathan Stark, a university president and former crush of the heroine's; and Andrew Royce, 33, a lawyer-turned-bodyguard hired to protect Melissa after she's followed, receives ominous messages and learns that her dog has been drugged and drowned. Neither a proper romance nor mystery, the story ends up as a weak hybrid of both. The prose is mundane, the dialogue trite: when Stark asks, ``How is life treating you?'' Melissa answers, ``Fine, fine. And you? How is life treating you?'' Elsewhere, smiles ``light up'' faces, and eyes ``laugh'' and ``dance.'' The contest gimmick should draw some readers to this bland and predictable work; it's only too bad that all won't be paid $10,000 for their time and trouble. (Nov.)