Stocks, Bonds and Confusion
For Love and Money: A Novel of Stocks and Robbers by Leslie Glass (Ballantine Books $23.95)
A funny thing happened on the way through the plot here. It seems to have evaporated out from under the narrative. One major plot point is left dangling and unresolved, and since it involves murder, it's pretty hard to ignore. Another fades away and is never pursued. Another is resolved in a ludicrous and unbelievable fashion. This is neither mystery nor romance nor chick-lit, but an unsatisfying amalgam of all three forms, each half-developed. more

The flaws are a shame because Annie Custer, the protagonist of the story, is easy to like and sympathize with. She is a harried stockbroker with a deadbeat husband and two daughters running amok (actually just one runs amok, the other one almost never leaves her room). Then her maid quits. Then her best friend asks a favor. Carol, the best friend, asks Annie to handle her parent's opening of a brokerage account with a pile of stashed stocks and bonds they've had hidden in the house for years. Carol's mother is ill and she wants the funds put away and accounted for before something happens. She asks Annie to go to their house and remove the stock certificates, bonds, whatever else and open an account for them. Although it's illegal for her to remove anything from anywhere, Annie reluctantly agrees after she's assured that the parents' accountant will also be present. Of course the unthinkable occurs. By the time the certificates are being inventoried at Annie's firm later that day, a quarter of a million dollars in bonds is missing. Intriguing questions arise all through the story but are never answered, which makes this an exercise in frustration. The money belonged to Mrs. Teath (Carol's mom); why did Mr. Teath have it hidden away for years without telling anyone where it was? Where did Mrs. Teath get the money? It is mentioned that the money may have come from her father, who was either a mobster or a bootlegger or both -- and we will never know because the matter is never mentioned again. Where did the jewelry come from? Why didn't Carol confront her father about taking her mother's inherited (from whom? when?)jewelry after her death? Why is Mr. Teath saying his wife has cancer when she does not? Why is he never questioned by anyone when she dies of what seems to be starvation? Why doesn't Carol care that her mother was murdered? Why are the missing bonds more important than a murder? Why does Annie decide to stay with her husband and move to Florida? Why bother reading this?
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