Can there be any doubt where this novel is heading?

Back to Elizabeth Strout's The Burgess Boys, which is moving forward in its desultory way - jumping about from one character to the other - from successful older brother, Jim (I called him Tom in previous post, in noting the rather nondescript names), to idealistic but socially inadept younger brother, Bob, to social outcast sister, Susan - with side journeys to the various spouses (Helen) and exes as well as to members of the Somali community in the Maine coastal town and the police chief and of course Susan's son, Zach, whose act of racial hatred - tossing a pig's head into the mosque, ignited the plot. Well, I think this novel could benefit from more focus and more careful development of character and setting, but that said it does an energy about it that keeps me reading - even though it's not hard to see how Strout will weave the plot strands together: can there be any doubt that the local lawyer, Charlie someone, whom Jim hires to defend his nephew, will be a failure and that one or both of the brothers, both lawyers, will have to return to Maine to take up the cause? Can there be any doubt that Bob will wind up with the Unitarian minister and, for the first time in his life, will best his successful older brother in some manner? The Burgess Boys is not as atmospheric or mysterious as Strout's earlier work, but rather it has the elements of a potboiler, and I can imagine it might make a pretty good movie