For Cadnum (In a Dark Wood, p. 55, etc.), there’s nothing like a little uncertainty to throw a top athlete—or a father- daughter relationship—off, headed for a permanent setback. There’s no question that Bonnie Chamberlain will be an Olympic-level competitor in platform diving; then she hits the platform during a routine practice and is not only seriously injured but fearful of ever diving again. Encouraged by an understanding coach, Bonnie forces herself into the water and steels herself to keep on diving. Then comes a blow almost worse than the accident. Her divorced and recently remarried father is arrested for bilking his law clients out of large sums of money. Bonnie, devastated, believes he is innocent, despite the hints from her mother, older sister, and best friend that he is guilty as charged. As the truth sinks in, Bonnie comes to understand that the money that built her mother’s business and paid for her own private-school education (and her hopes for diving) is part of her father’s past schemes—that she is not entirely excluded from his guilt. In this gripping look at family relationships Cadnum finds painful shades of gray for Bonnie to face for the first time; in her will to grasp the manner and timing of her healing is evidence that she is one of Cadnum’s most complex and enigmatic characters. (Fiction. 12-14)
