But when Carl's ex-wife Amanda puts Jesse under hypnosis, bits and pieces of returned memory point to either Martin or Wes (or both) assaulting her. Or so her husband, Martin Ackerman, and his brother Wes have said. They discover that Jesse is the wife of a rich ex-chocolate manufacturer, and that she was lost at sea during a storm. But logic builds a real case for Jesse's lapse and, with Kit's help, they begin investigating her past. The reader at first thinks this overly cute. She cant remember anything thats happened since, and acts as if they're both teenagersuntil Carl proves otherwise. And then Carl finds that Jesse, whom he hasn't seen since high school, is mentally locked into those early years. It's his old high-school sweetheart Jesse and, as they did 17 years ago before breaking up, they make love out back in the greenhouse. Carl Rooney, whose parents have died and who still lives in the family home in Glendale, works late with co-writer Kit, then drives home in the wee hours, only to find someone throwing gravel at his bedroom window. Thus, with a hero who writes a comedy series and is abetted by a tartly gay co-scripter in resolving his fantastic problem, one foresees a comedy melodrama with a second lead who does all the wisecracks. Sutton spent nine years writing TV's Cheers scripts. Debut suspense novel offering a sexually frank variation on Robert Nathan's novel Portrait of Jennie, with pleasing results.

Always Six O'Clock by Phoef Sutton