THE SENATOR'S DAUGHTER

Eye-catching Victoria Gotti, daughter of Godfather John Gotti, debuts as an accomplished thriller writer. Does Gotti's first novel feature her ties to her father? Well, John Gotti is here, but only psychically, in the form of two characters in conflict with each other. In DeCiccio's Restaurant on Boston's wharf, union strongman Joseph Sessio (read: John Gotti) is shot twice through the head. The power vacuum is filled by distinguished Senator Frank Morgan of Massachusetts (read: John Gotti), who was ushered into prominence long years before with union money derived in part from his father's old ties with the union as a bootlegger (the union moved his booze). The heroine is blond Taylor Brooke, a serious young lawyer with a pricey Boston firm who is tapped to defend Tommy Washington, the 19-year-old black busboy accused of shooting Sessio. But word is out that the rubout was set up by Sessio's son Mike, who wanted to take over his father's empire. Taylor finds herself befriended by the handsome, sensual, art-fancying Sessio, who tells her that he doesn't believe Washington killed his father. Thus, the murdered man's son is helping the defending attorney get his falsely accused father's murderer acquitted, although this points the finger only more strongly at himself. Taylor's background: Her mother was abandoned by her married lover, Frank Morgan (before he became senator), then became the alcoholic victim of a vehicular homicide. Taylor was raised in a Catholic girls' orphanage in Fall River, married and then fled from an abusive husband, assumed a new identity in Boston and, her career secretly underwritten by her guilt-ridden father, became a lawyer. Now dad hopes to mend fences. But bad people and a car-bomber are out to kill Taylor, as is her knife-bearing husband. Surprisingly effective throughout, until the parricidal final pages, which fly by too fast for credibility even for melodrama. Flashy but powerful.