RHUBARB (301 pp.)H. Allen Smith Doubleday ($2).
H. Allen Smith has reason to like cats better than dogs. Before he turned to writing best-selling books (Low Man on a Totem Pole, Life in a Putty Knife Factory), he wrote newspaper features, including movie-star interviews. During that ordinarily harmless tour of duty, the late Lupe Velez once became so agitated that she threw a small brown dog at him. Now, at long last, Author Smith has written a novel about a cat, a large yellow alley cat called Rhubarb.
Rhubarb, which comes from Jackson Heights, Long Island, falls heir to a fortune left by...