Brief reviews, April 7

Peter Mergendahl, Jane Dickinson, Mark Graham, Special to the News

Friday, April 7, 2006

THRILLERS

18 Seconds

By George Shuman (Simon & Schuster, $23).

Grade: B

Regardless of your beliefs about parapsychology, you're likely to be intrigued by the premise of this story. It involves a young woman who was blinded and orphaned as a young child and who slowly learns that she has a strange, unexplainable gift/curse. By touching the body of a dead person, Sherry Moore can "see" the last 18 seconds of that person's thoughts.

What would the last 18 seconds of your life be spent thinking about? If you were killed instantly, would those last seconds reflect what killed you? If a murderer stepped up to you and told you why you were being killed, would 18 seconds be enough for the explanation?

You can understand our heroine's dilemma: Imagine being called upon by families, and occasionally the cops, to help explain what happened to a loved one or victim as they passed. No wonder, when we are first introduced to Sherry, she's near a state of emotional exhaustion and battlefield stress.

This is, of course, when she'll face the most intense ordeal of her life.

A revenge-seeking parolee with nothing to live for is coming into her orbit. Another woman is also feeling the effects of serial killer Earl Sykes' approach: Lieutenant Kelly O'Shaughnessy of the Wildwood, New Jersey police, who is looking into a series of young women's disappearances. Inevitably, Sherry and Kelly will warily come together in an attempt to catch a psychopath with nothing to lose but his next victim.

Shuman's creative premise is promising, but he ultimately lets it flounder. Readers are introduced to Sherry, only to have her disappear for pages while he focuses on Kelly. Shuman has a story or two in him, and the ability to tell them. All he needs is to slow down and tell one at a time.

Peter Mergendahl

MYSTERY

Cripple Creek

By James Sallis (Walker, $23).

Grade: A

Life is good now for Turner, the one-named deputy of James Sallis's atmospheric mysteries set in the mountains of Tennessee. In Cripple Creek, the second in the series, Turner is acting deputy sheriff of a tiny town where the good ol' boys really are good and people look out for one another. He's found love with Val Bjorn, a lawyer who plays old-time country music on a banjo in her spare time. And if he hasn't entirely put his demons to rest, he has at least sent them on an extended vacation.

When Sheriff Don Lee pulls over a red Mustang one night for driving through town at 80 miles per hour, the driver gets aggressive and winds up in jail, triggering a chain of events that will change everything. Turner arrives at work the next day to discover both the sheriff and the dispatcher out cold, the perp sprung by some out-of-town thugs. Turner finds a Memphis connection and heads back to the city of his troubled past. Naturally, he just finds more trouble, which follows him back to his beloved mountains. Meanwhile, his daughter from a long-ago marriage turns up, grown now and a police officer in her own right.

This series is notable for its literary bent and a sensibility that is southern without making too big a deal about it. The characters have voices, not just accents, and bring to life a distant slice of Americana while avoiding stereotypes - the southern sheriff doesn't throw his weight around, the hillbilly hunter quietly guards his neighbors' safety. And Sallis is an excellent writer who plays the English language like a well-tuned country fiddle. Read Sallis for a whiff of "Wildwood Flower" and the tang of hopping john.

Jane Dickinson

UNREAL WORLDS

Headstone City

By Tom Piccirilli (Bantam Spectra, $5.99).

Grade: A

Colorado authors have won a disproportional number of awards for horror literature. Since the Horror Writers Association began handing out Bram Stoker Awards in 1988, a whopping 15, or roughly 10 percent, of the statuettes have ended up in our state. Four of these are on the mantle of Loveland's Tom Piccirilli, a transplanted New Yorker.

His new book opens the day Johnny "Dane" Danetello, a small-time hood, is to be released from prison. His last time in the prison shower, he survives a clumsy mob hit, the second in recent weeks. And he knows that when he returns to his old Brooklyn neighborhood, the attempts on his life will continue. Piccirilli has named this area Headstone City for its proximity to a cemetery where many Italians are buried.

In flashbacks, readers learn that when Dane was a teenager, he and his best friend Vinny Monticelli, son of a Mafia don, survived the crash of a car they had stolen. Both flew through the windshield. The head traumas put plates in Dane's skull and cost Vinny an eye. But it also left them with paranormal talents. Vinny can visit alternate realities, and Dane sees and talks with the dead.

Dane, the son of a police officer killed by the mob, became a taxi driver, while Vinny followed in his father's footsteps. Before the narrative starts, Angie, the Don's 15-year-old daughter, went brain dead in the back of Dane's cab after injecting tainted drugs. Dane clipped a traffic cop as he tried to rush Angie to the hospital and was imprisoned. In spite of his efforts, the Don and his sons blame Dane for the girl's death. And now, in death, Angie still sits in the cab and chats with Dane, while her family sends inept goons to kill him.

The author's picture of Italian family life in Brooklyn is stunningly vivid. And those who haunt it, especially Dane's tough and resilient grandmother Lucia, will capture the reader's imagination. Dane is an expertly realized picaresque antihero, a latter-day Tom Jones, who, like Henry Fielding's masterpiece, inspires affection, despite not being a very nice guy.

I hope Piccirilli has room on his mantle because it won't be surprising if Headstone City brings another Bram Stoker Award to our state.