THE SPANISH KIDNAPPING DISASTER

Felicia ("Felix"), 12, recounts her adventures with stepsister Amy, also 12, and Amy's 10-year-old brother, Phillip, when the three are dragged along on their parents' honeymoon. With her attention focused on her bitter feud with Amy, Felix carelessly gives a friendly stranger (Grace), met on the street in Toledo, an exaggerated impression of the family's wealth. Later, her parents accept Grace's offer to take the three kids to to see some windmills—a venture that promptly becomes a kidnapping, planned by Grace as a transfer of what she sees as excess wealth to more needy children. But the plan is perverted by the greed of her unscrupulous accomplices—and, horrified, Grace finally helps her victims escape; in turn, they conceal her part in the venture. The beginning here is comfortably predictable, the climax appropriately suspenseful (as Amy and Felix flee, hide, bicker, and warily begin to accept each other), and the conclusion has some satisfying twists that grow logically out of the lightly sketched but plausible characterizations. While the parents' trust in Grace is improbable, it's an acceptable premise for the genre. Good recreational fare.