THE DELPHIC CHOICE

From a much-practiced novelist, another adventure-romance in the vein of Return to Morocco (1988). Just out of high school, Meredith has come to Istanbul to help her aunt, Felicity, through a difficult pregnancy. As she arrives, Felicity's husband--Mark, a Quaker peace-negotiator--disappears, presumably to try to free a friend taken hostage by a new Muslim terrorist group. Meredith, a self-reliant, take-charge sort, is called on to run the house-hold and field not only reporters but cryptic messages from Mark and the terrorists who now hold Mark, and eventually to deal with the CIA. In these endeavors she has the help of the Quaker community, friendly Muslim neighbors, and an impeccable American graduate student she picked up in Delphi; the ""choice"" she ultimately makes (concurring with Mark's prescient instructions) is that public good has to outweigh private safety; fortunately, the consequences here are not as cruel as they can often be. Johnston brings a real sense of place to her fast-moving story, neatly tucking in nuggets of social and political history. There are improbabilities: to save the baby, Felicity is kept in the dark about her husband, even though she's a level-headed person who later says, ""Suspecting is far worse than knowing."" And Meredith carries messages to the terrorists with only mild trepidation--but that's par for the genre. Light, but lively and entertaining.