FICTION

THE PLAYROOM by Frances Hegarty (Pocket Books: $20; 295 pp.). Hegarty’s characters are just too sick. David Allendale is a charming and brilliant architect who also happens to be a coldblooded psychopath. His wife Katherine is pretty and passive and she is willing to suffer anything for financial security. David punishes their daughter Jeanetta for misbehaving by locking her up in the playroom. Katherine sinks into a state of heavy denial as their lives deteriorate. She flirts at a party, and David punishes her on their way home by ordering her out of the car in a rough neighborhood. After she is attacked by a gang, she crawls home, where David slaps her around and then allows her to come in. Both David and Katherine had terrible childhoods, which is supposed to explain their behavior. The story is a compelling one, but unfortunately the characters are drawn with a cold, judgmental eye, so the novel falls short of its billing as a psychological drama.