LUST FOR INNOCENCE

A treacly tale -- a sort of adult bedtime story to stay up late with- tells of Michael, unhappily married to the cruel, elegant Vanessa; Angela, their eight year old daughter; and Celia, a motherly, warm woman with whom Michael has been innocently in love. In an attempt to extort from Angela her knowledge of Michael's rendezvous with Celia, Vanessa first mutilates Angela's teddybear- then threatens to throw it in front of an oncoming subway train. In the scuffle to follow, it is Vanessa who falls and is killed- while Angela is left with her guilty knowledge. So is an observer, a pervert, Leonard Otter, who threatens the child in order to indulge his nymphet- mania, and Angela, in the web of ugly secrets, promises and cajolery to follow- almost breaks down, almost is killed... For Angela, there's hot milk- for the reader a half-ashamed sense of participation too.