AREN'T YOU THE ONE WHO. . . ?

In The Truth Trap (1980) Matt McKendrick was orphaned by a car crash, accused of the murder of his deaf little sister, beaten, jailed, and ostracized, then taken into the home of police lieutenant Ryder. This sequel is all about Matt's worries about being accepted: in the Ryders' neighborhood, where anyone he meets might remember the newspaper accounts and still believe him to be little Katie's killer (the real murderer was never found); at school, where the track coach does remember and persecute him for it; in the neighboring Schuyler family, where he becomes close to four motherless kids but fears that they'll reject him when they realize who he is (they don't); and in the Ryder family, where he is doing fine except for a stretch when concern over an academically retarded friend threatened with institutionalization causes him to forget little Michael Ryder's birthday. In the end he wins over the coach, is able to help the Schuylers with their domestic problems, sees his friend well situated as a vet's assistant, and is offered formal adoption by the loving Ryders. One sympathizes with Matt's concerns, but none of this has much psychological dimension; and without the hard action that kept the first volume going, the whole novel seems more an extended postscript than a sequel with life of its own.