THE WATCHMEN

Continuing his endangered heroine endeavors (Night of Reunion, 1990), Allegretto puts landscape-planner Lauren Caylor's second marriage in jeopardy when, suddenly, cars start tailing her, new neighbors move in and spy on her, and she catches her husband telling several whoppersand acting awfully jittery. How well does she really know this man she married? Is her daughter Emily safe with him? Is she? Before his secret past is revealed, the family will be shadowed at Sea World; their phone will be tapped; the FBI will come calling; and a former mobster and his psycho sidekick will waylay them in the kitchenwhere one more secret will out, blood will spill, and the marriage will survive. A suspense story without the prime ingredientsuspense. Allegretto, who has had somewhat more success with his Jake Lomax series, needs to get out of the kitchen and back to the back alleys.*justify no*