BLACK AND BLUE

Phimister readily transforms herself into the girl next door, the sort of character whose earnestness and sincerity easily capture our sympathy and affection. Not that Quindlen's heroine, an abused wife named Frannie Benedetto, would have trouble attracting any right-thinking listener to her side. After enduring years of beatings by Bobby, her cop husband, Fran flees from their Brooklyn home with their 10-year-old son to construct an anonymous new life in Florida. The book is that odd contradiction, a page-turner in which nothing really comes as a surprise. The strength of the novel and the reading is a heroine who is likable and complex, full of the contradictions that we can recognize in ourselves. Unfortunately, Phimister cannot breathe such reality into Quindlen's villain, whose inner life is never revealed. He's a thug, and we never experience him as more. M.O. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC/JAN 99]