THE LOVE OF FRIENDS

A surprisingly unsatisfying novel from Bond (Truth to Tell, 1994, etc.) about an American in London, and then Scotland, attempting to be a good friend under increasingly exasperating circumstances. When Charlotte, 16, arrives in London to visit Oliver, she feels lost and weary. Oliver is secretive and irritable, and the reason becomes clear—his parents thought that Charlotte's trip had been postponed and have left him alone. He intends to take advantage of their absence to have an adventure with Charlotte, rushing through London with her and then heading to Scotland to locate an old man who was a friend of Oliver's beloved, deceased uncle. Along the way, they encounter a wandering, troubled, pregnant teen, Ariadne, whose function seems to be to spew forced insights. There's no payoff for suffering through nearly 300 pages of Oliver and Charlotte's bickering. The settings are richly painted, and Bond invests admirably in background explanations, but readers will be left with too many questions about Oliver's secrecy, and about Charlotte's interest in him in the first place. (Fiction. 12-15)