Loss of Innocence
Thriller author Patterson ventures into mainstream waters with mixed results in this follow-up to 2012&'s Fall from Grace, the second entry in a projected trilogy. In June 1968, 21-year-old Whitney Dane, a child of privilege, is looking forward to her September wedding to Peter Brooks, her socially suitable college sweetheart, on Martha&'s Vineyard, Mass., where her family has a summer house. Whitney anticipates having the picture-perfect marriage of her proper parents, but the times are a-changin&', and things do not go as planned. Early one late June morning, after a swim in the ocean, Whitney encounters Benjamin Blaine, a college dropout who grew up on the island and worked for Robert Kennedy&'s presidential campaign. Readers will know that poor Whitney will never be the same after meeting Ben, whose angular frame, taller than Peter&'s, suggested litheness and grace even when still. The plot meanders along without surprise until a few shockers are thrown in toward the end. The result resembles nothing so much as a minor John O&'Hara book, concerned, as that author&'s work usually was, with notions of class, personal and political change, and, most of all, heartbreak. First printing of 150,000. Agent: Bonnie Nadell, Hill Nadell Literary Agency. (Oct.)