Short takes: Thrillers

Reviewed by MICHELE HEWITSON

Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza: The Silence Of The Rain

Inspector Espinosa is a lovely addition to the list of fictional policemen. He's hardly your hard-core cop: "His mental process was mainly a dreamy flow of pictures alongside entirely imaginary dialogues. It seems he was incapable of sustained rational thought — a failing that, for a policeman, was embarrassing, to say the least." Espinosa's thought processes are the means by which this story proceeds: inside his head, and inside the criminal world of Rio. The writing is crisp and plain. Silence of the Rain begins with an apparent suicide, ends with a peculiar death — by bodily fluids — and is one of the best murder mysteries I've read in a long time.

(Picador, $27.95)

* * *

Pete Dexter: Train

Train is being touted as "1950s LA noir reminiscent of James Ellroy." The tough tone is certainly there. Here's how it opens: "January, 1948. At this point in the story, Packard had never fallen in love, and didn't trust what he'd heard of the lingo ... It sounded out of control to him, and messy." Train, a young, black caddy, works at an elite golf club. Packard becomes his manager and they embark on a tour of underground golfing tournaments, ending up as handymen at the Beverly Hills home of Norah Still, survivor of a boat hijacking. She's frightened of the men. They are frightened of poverty, and of her wealth. Packard is, as we know, afraid of love. There's nowhere to go but forward into the fear, which Dexter does beautifully. Terrific stuff.

(William Heinemann, $49.95)

* * *

Gemma O'Connor: Following The Wake

This is a tidy little murder mystery — perhaps a little too tidy — with its beginnings in watery West Cork. A small boy, Gil, forms an attachment to an old fisherman who drowns the night the boy's father is thought to have murdered his lover. Gil's father also disappears, presumed drowned. Gil grows up and wants to discover his family's real story — all of which is brought together by that device so loved by crime writers: the journalist in pursuit of a long-dead story. But there are more twists than the old-standby usually allows, and the family tensions are nicely developed.

(Bantam Press, $22.95)

* * *

Harlan Coben: One False Move

I've been a bit snooty about Coben's brand of schmaltzy detecting dross, but this one's okay(ish). The writing's picked up and the story, while completely unbelievable (hey, it's suspense-land) nips along quite nicely. It goes like this: sports agent Myron Bolitar agrees to act as bodyguard to the beautiful black basketball star Brenda Slaughter (somebody should have put their foot down over that one). She's one tough chick with a past which involves a missing mother. Now her father has gone missing too, and some weirdos are hanging around, although in the world of sports agents everyone's a bigger shark than the crims circling the plot.

(Orion, $35)

* * *

Peter Spiegelman: Black Maps

A better-than-average foray into the tried and true territory of Manhattan's money markets, Black Maps is about wealth and crooked wheeling and
dealing, and the contrasts between the haves and the have-nots. But it's better than that makes it sound: fast-paced, good characters and enough action scenes for it to make a better than average movie.

(Century, $34.95)