A CHILD IS MISSING

A Lindbergh kidnap novel in impossibly bad taste but redeemed in part by a striking conclusion. Leif Dahlquist (read Lindy) has just died at 72. Klaus Ochsner's (Hauptmann's) son Ricky, bitter at the way his father was railroaded to the chair and his mother driven mad, vows vengeance and kidnaps young Martin Dahlquist's son, Leif's grandson. He leaves a note making no mention of ransom. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Dahlquist (Anne Morrow Lindbergh) has kept a letter hidden for 40 years, from Ochsner's widow, which has proof that the ""Dahlquist baby"" is not dead; the letter could have brought a stay of execution had she not opened it three days too late. Who then is the dead baby that was found on the Dahlquist estate some months after the kidnap? It turns out that the Ochsners had lost a baby themselves (before the kidnap) and that that baby's grave is empty. So whose son is Ricky? Can he possibly be. . . ? ? My God, has the lost Dahlquist child grown up and. . . and. . . ? ? ? Not memorable--in fact, you may wish to wash it out--but the imaginative end is worth looking into by crime freaks.