TAKEN BY A STRANGER

Haunted by Francie, the adored older stepsister he once watched his father beat to death, Darren Gillespie has lived in fear of the young girls who attract him. He's already served a sentence for one ugly incident in Ipswich when his eye is caught by 11-year-old Nicolle Gurney, bruised but as beautiful as Francie. Darren knows he shouldn't go off with Nicky no matter how strongly he suspects her stepfather, Alan Ralph, of mistreating her; but after they spend an afternoon together at Wheatcliffe-on-Sea, Nicky insists on running away with him—and, when her cancer-stricken mother dies, sees no reason to return to Alan. So Darren, in an agony of apprehension, finds himself trapped into taking care of her, finding work that will allow him to keep her in ices and fan magazines, and eventually committing robbery and murder on behalf of their domestic establishment. All the while, Mike Southgate, who was sacked as Darren's social worker at the same time he came to appreciate the true nature of his attraction to Darren, is looking for him with a combination of solicitude and dread that mirrors Darren's own. When Mike tracks down Alan and the two ill-assorted searchers join forces, it's clear that the clock is running down on Darren and Nicky's sorry idyll. Less intense and suspenseful than Never Walk Behind Me (1993), because Nicky never comes fully alive even as an object of Darren's obsession. But then Nicky's Lolita-esque banality is precisely what gives this dysfunctional romance its creepy, off- kilter power.