SILENT NIGHT

SILENT NIGHT Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster, $16) Say you were trying to think up a really schmaltzy plotline for a holiday movie-of-the-week. Say you imagined it kind of like Miracle on 34th Street crossed with The Client. The kinds of variables you might want to include would start with kids, of course; some youthful, loving parents; a grandmother, for real pathos; and then, certainly, something bad to happen to this nice family like...a kidnapping! by an escaped convict!... But that convict could have a wretchedly poor sister -- a sweet, single mother -- and the kidnapping could bring her into contact with the little boy's family. Then you could throw in some sympathetic cops for good measure and set the whole thing on Christmas Eve. And, it goes without saying, tack on a happy ending. Say you did all that, and say you decided to publish the whole thing as a novel first. Then you would have an idea of what the latest Mary Higgins Clark novel is like. And then you might think, in the words of the youthful, loving mother, ''No...no, that can't be.'' D