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Brief reviews, July 8

Published July 8, 2005 at midnight

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MYSTERY

Mission Road

By Rick Riordan (Bantam, $24).

Grade: B+

Rick Riordan has nailed down all the top awards in the mystery game with his novels about big, bold Texas, including an Edgar for The Widower's Two-Step. His latest, Mission Road, is the sixth featuring San Antonio private investigator Tres Navarre.

Tres is in trouble again in Mission Road, on the run with his old friend Ralph Arguello, whose police officer wife, Ana, has been shot. Ralph, known for his shady past, is a prime suspect. The loves and betrayals that led to the attack go back 25 years to Ana's mother's days as a San Antonio cop, and Tres looks for help from an unlikely source - his old nemesis Guy White.

Meanwhile, his long-running love affair with attorney Maia Lee looks as though it may take a turn toward the serious. Riordan pens a swift and often funny plot with plenty of action, although the story drags a little toward the end when the pieces start to fall into place.

But the city of San Antonio gets a star turn in the series, and Riordan also comes up with some wonderful characters, including Sam, a retired FBI special agent who carries a fully loaded water pistol and isn't afraid to use it. Sam makes Alzheimer's seem manageable and a little bit charming, much as Alaska author John Straley's Todd, afflicted with autism, adds an unusual edge to his books.

Speaking of John Straley: The Woman Who Married a Bear, the first of his excellent series set in Alaska, will be reissued in paperback this month by Soho Books - a great chance to check out this top-notch but little-known author.

- Jane Dickinson

UNREAL WORLDS

Laughin' Boy

By Bradley Denton (Subterranean Press, $40).

Grade: A

One of my 10 favorite novels is Blackburn by Bradley Denton. Among my favorite pieces of short fiction, count any stories Denton has written, especially the World Fantasy-, Hugo- and Nebula-nominated novella, The Territory, and the Kafka pastiche, A Conflagration Artist.

One of my least favorite things as a reader has been the nine-year wait between Denton's most recent novel, Lunatics (1996), and Laughin' Boy.

Each of Denton's novels has been unique from the bizarre science-fiction story Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede to Lunatics, a tale of fantasy romance. Though this new book is a mainstream novel with only a few supernatural references, it will not disappoint any fan of the unreal genre.

Those familiar with Denton's oeuvre shouldn't be surprised that Danny Clayton, the protagonist of Laughin' Boy, is a Midwestern Everyman who is thrust into the spotlight and into infamy by circumstances totally beyond his control. Danny embodies Denton's most common existential theme: that ordinary people frequently change the world, only almost never on purpose.

When Clayton attends a Wichita music festival, commandos show up with automatic weapons and grenades and wipe out most of the crowd. A dying man's videotape chronicles the carnage and, by chance, centers in on Danny who, unhurt in the midst of the bloodbath, is bent over laughing hysterically. Overnight, Danny Clayton becomes known as "Laughin' Boy," the most hated man in America.

After FBI agents are assured that Danny is not involved with the killers, but the victim of a psychological affliction, they decide to use him as bait to catch those responsible.

Part of the ruse is having Danny treated by a pair of pop media psychologists known for ministering to people with unusual conditions. Thus, he is thrown in with Porno Girl, a 30-year-old virgin who is addicted to the most depraved pornography, and The Racist Ranger, a white FBI agent who talks like the slave Jim in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

What follows is Denton at his best, throwing satirical barbs at conservatives, liberals, religion, the media, foreign policy, the political climate and anyone who takes himself too seriously.

Readers will find themselves laughing out loud and cringing in horror, frequently at the same time, as they become more and more involved in Danny Clayton's bizarre life. And they will wonder if there is any way that Laughin' Boy can possibly emerge from his situation with any hope for the future.

Was it worth the wait? Of course it was. Am I willing to wait another nine years for the next one? Not a chance. Denton, get to work.

- Mark Graham

YOUNG ADULT

Far From Xanadu

By Julie Anne Peters (Little, Brown and Company, $16.99, ages 12 and up).

Grade: B

When a statuesque girl with mahogany-colored hair arrives at the local small-town Kansas high school, Mike Szabo falls in love with the exotic beauty.

The catch is that Mike is a girl (her birth name is Mary Elizabeth). She wears ribbed undershirts, bench-presses 80 pounds and likes the small-town life. Xanadu, on the other hand, is from the suburbs of Denver, has been exiled to live with an aunt and uncle after giving another teenager a fatal hit of Ecstasy, and is very much into guys.

Peters, a local author who has written other books that touch on gay and transsexual themes, writes about Mike's unrequited love with such understanding and longing that readers of any sexual orientation will identify with her.

Occasionally, Peters delves into sexually romantic matters for Mike and her male gay friend, Jamie. The language is far from explicit, but it is direct and honest, so knowing your audience will help when recommending this book.

Mike has issues other than her sexuality. Her father, whom she adored, committed suicide, leaving her with a depressed and extremely overweight mother and a lazy older brother. She's also the star softball player for her high school team and is struggling with the town's campaign to raise money to send her to an expensive softball camp.

She's a strong character and quite likable, and, even though her desire for Xanadu drags on a little long, Mike shares a sweet moment with her brother that will leave readers satisfied.

- Natalie Soto

COLORADO AUTHORS

Skywatch West: The Complete Weather Guide.

By Richard A. Keen (Fulcrum, 263 pages, $24.95).

Grade: A

Coloradans are inveterate weather-watchers, possibly because the only thing predictable about our weather is its unpredictability.

Reading this revision of Richard Keen's 1987 book will help readers understand the mercurial nature of Western weather and develop a tolerance for forecaster errors.

Skywatch West offers comprehensive information about Western weather, with enough solid facts for the scientifically minded and enough anecdotes to appeal to the casually interested.

Keen, who holds a Ph.D. in climatology, catches our water-restriction-weary attention by detailing some startling facts about precipitation extremes. Washington's Olympic Peninsula averages 144.43 inches of rainfall annually, for example, while Death Valley only receives 2.3 inches. Precipitation levels, he writes, can vary greatly within a short distance.

Keen discusses the phenomena of summer monsoons and devotes considerable space to explaining thunderstorms, which strike New Mexico and Colorado "70 or more days a year." Yet, the average storm lasts only an hour or so.

In addition, he notes that lightning can and does strike twice in the same place - and cites a personal example to prove it.

Pages of spectacular photos, maps, charts and weather Web sites complete the appeal of this book, which even clearly explains dew point, El Niño and lake-effect snowstorms.

- Joan Hinkemeyer