THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 2, 1997 TAG: 9701250535
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: By Shirley Presberg
LENGTH: 75 lines
THE HONOR FARM
JOHN WESTERMANN
Pocket Books. 310 pp. $22.
When a police commissioner's son commits suicide at a plush prison for criminal cops, the commissioner sends officer Orin Boyd to conduct an undercover investigation. Boyd must contend with ex-cops and prison staff members who hold grudges against him as he attempts to determine if the suicide was actually a murder. Westermann eases the ominous atmosphere with wry comments: ``So many guys placed him at scenes he never graced, Nick got fat from testimonial dinners.'' This scary police procedural has many fine moments.
AIRFRAME
MICHAEL CRICHTON
Alfred A. Knopf. 352 pp. $26.
Casey Singleton, a vice president for Norton Aircraft, investigates a mid-air catastrophe that ends with several injuries and deaths in Crichton's latest thriller. Instead of advancing the plot, Crichton overuses acronyms and drones on interminably: ``Dwell-time fatigue was a condition in which the titanium used to make rotor disks clumped into microstructure colonies, rendering them vulnerable to fatigue cracks.'' One of Crichton's characters who researches the disaster for a segment on a TV show inadvertently comes up with the perfect description for this novel: ``It was a lot of aerospace babble, dense and impenetrable.''
A MURDER OF CROWS
STEVE SHEPARD
Lyford Books. 253 pp. $23.95.
``I think I stumbled upon a nuclear accident and the people responsible for it are trying to kill me.'' The terrified witness, Dr. George Duval, flees after erroneously concluding that the United States caused the mishap and was intent upon covering it up. But the accident actually happened to a group of Russian fanatics who were smuggling hydrogen bombs into the States. When the U.S. government finally becomes aware of the danger, they and the Russians both launch massive hunts for Duval. Shepard creates stupendous tension in his first novel.
LOVE FOR SALE
JOHN LESLIE
Pocket Books. 263 pp. $22.
Two provocative plot lines converge in John Leslie's latest Key West mystery featuring P.I. Gideon Loway. Loway's cousin, a widowed judge, suddenly announces plans to marry a woman with a questionable background. Then Katy Morgan, Loway's companion from a discreet escort service, tells Loway that she possesses a valuable gold cup that belongs to someone else. When Katy is found dead, Loway finds a connection among her death, the gold cup and the judge's fiancee. Although many of the characters are depressed in this mystery, the melancholy tone is softened with the author's engaging asides: ``I sank into leather so soft and liquid that I could almost recall my prenatal experience.''
DEATH IN LOVERS' LANE
CAROLYN HART
Avon Books. 275 pp. $20.
When Maggie Winslow, a student reporter, decides to investigate three unsolved murders with campus connections, someone kills her. Maggie's journalism teacher feels guilty for pushing Maggie to conduct in-depth research on the old cases and resolves to find the killer. Hart's denouement in this mystery is clever, but her trite pronouncements are annoying: ``Reporters have to remember that surface doesn't reflect the depths.''