MASQUE OF VIRTUE

The story according to -- bank president John McCain, his daughter, Gael, the man she loves, Dan, his wife, Judy, and McCain's mistress, Jen -- unrolls a pretty pattern of degradation for all, in taking one behind the scenes of the Ohio town of Riverside, skirts a Catholic problem and resolves the personal issues on a contrived point. For McCain hopes to be able to prove his own identity when his relative, and patron, the Bishop of Columbus, dies; takes a chance on hot thousand dollar bills and gets squeezed into a gambling play in his city; centers his obsession on Dan's wife, Judy, and desperately schemes to work her into his planning. But Gael, championing Dan who is built of crusader stuff, is adamant opposition and sticks with their newspaper tradition in not letting personal issues be an influence -- and McCain's final play uncovers his unbalance --and the imbalance for the others. A tracery of the character which is set ""at a certain age"" and which determines future events holds hard to its argument and is made up of peepholes and some degree of penetration. Right -- and wrong -- in a cramped fitting.