Death of the Black-Haired Girl, Stone - B

                                               The Times reviewer refers to this short novel as a "Hawthorne-like allegory and a sure-footed psychological thriller."  It is a fine read, particularly for those with a penchant for New England colleges or some fine NYC Irish Catholic guilt, remorse and blue-collar alcoholism.  The setting is a college campus, where a married professor is having an affair with, Maud,  a black-haired beauty from Queens. He breaks it off when he finds out his wife is pregnant and she drunkenly confronts him late at night on a busy street with fatal, accidental consequences.  Her failing city cop father struggles with the Church, which is very unwilling to bury her with her mother because Maud had written an incendiary article condemning the Church's vitriolic attacks on the abortion clinic near the college. All in all, a solid read.