The South Bend Tribune du lieu suivant : South Bend, Indiana • 105

'Patchwork' beats as emotion-packed HIDDEN AGENDA, by Anna Porter (E. P. Dutton, 322 $14.95) PATCHWORK, by Carolyn Banks (Crown Books, 229 $15.95) "HIDDEN AGENDA" and "Patchwork" are suspense stories with a similar approach. Each author uses a longtime close relationship as a springboard to a tale of murder and mayhem. "Hidden Agenda" pits lifelong friends Judith Hayes and Marsha Hillier against the unknown murderers of several publishers.

Hayes is a free-lance journalist in Toronto working on a profile of publisher George Harris. Minutes after one of their interviews ends, Harris is killed by a train in a subway station. Hillier works for a New York publishing firm whose chief, Max Grafstein, is an Carolyn Banks Carolyn Banks acquaintance of Harris. Grafstein is murdered shortly after Harris's death. The thread linking these deaths and the later death of a British publisher is a lost manuscript.

Hayes and Hillier eventually track the work down. In the process, they find themselves embroiled in international intrigue. The two women are interesting enough characters. But the ins and outs of their lives a generic mix of the troubles divorced or single women face are lowkeyed. When Porter finally brings the mystery to the forefront, late in the novel, it is so complex it is jarring.

The contrast is puzzling, and definitely a down point of this story. The better of the two novels is "Patchwork." Like the needlework Carolyn Banks is constantly describing, "Patchwork" is an intricate blend of human emotions. The two principal characters are Rachel and her son Drew. The story begins with Rachel in a panic. She has just learned that her ex-husband has been murdered.

She is sure her errant son Drew, who had been institutionalized in a drug rehabilitation program, committed the crime. And she is South Bend Tribune, Sunday, July 13, 1986 'Hidden Agenda' suspense story sure he is coming to kill her. When the author first introduces Drew, the reader is pretty sure Rachel is right. Slowly, however, Banks unveils two mysteries. The first, obviously, is about the homicide.

The other beautifully describes the love-hate relationship between a wounded, angry woman and the son on whom she has subtly loaded that anger. Do they really hate each other? Page by page, "Patchwork" provides high class suspense as well as a touching portrait of a -child relationship. -Gail Hinchion Gail Hinchion is a Tribune staff writer. TV reporter hunts for talk-show host DEAD AIR, by Mike Lupica (Villard Books, 245 $15.95) TELEVISION reporter-investigator Peter Finley blamed himself when he discovered the trail of missing talk-show host Peggy Lynn Brady strewn with bodies. That's because Finley didn't pay close enough attention when Billy Lynn arrived from Guertin, intent on finding out who killed Peggy Lynn and why.

Finley, who must rely on Channel A newsteam cameraman Marty Pearl to provide the muscle when needed for their investigative excursions, didn't like the implication that he also needed help in the brains department. How he gets over it is a neat piece of investigative fiction and Writer fictionalizes her life- -until EXPENSIVE HABITS, by Maureen Howard (Summit Books, 298 $17.95) IF I were a literary scholar, I might review the works of authors who murder child-characters for the sake of a climax. Maybe I'd find a good, sociological reason for such plot twists. Art imitates life, and indeed children do die. But one wonders if killing a child isn't something a writer does in lieu of life.

Maureen Howard is either more guilty of fictional child mutilation than most or more insightful about it, depending on how you view the issue. In "Expensive Habits," Howard creates Margaret Flood, a writer who has substituted her life for fictional versions of it. She has seized her episodes and pounded them into dramatic one-dimensional stories that romanticize her part and damn those who lived the chapters with her. Her parents, Margaret Flood notes, were too decent to write about. But her philandering first husband becomes the central character in a quasi-fiction account of their marriage that makes her name as an author.

Czech-held 'spy' HOVEY'S DECEPTION, by Philip Ross (Tom Doherty Associates, 284 $14.95) POOR Lawrence Hovey. This simpleminded aging enfant terrible of the literary world agrees to accept military secrets from a Czechoslovakian scholar while at a conference in Prague. Hovey believes he is doing this work for the CIA. He is caught and he and the Czechoslovakian are imprisoned. As it turns out, Hovey wasn't working for the CIA at all, but the CIA can't figure out who he was working for, unless it was the Czechoslovakian government posing as the CIA in a clever plot to discredit a spy and the CIA at the same time.

Tom Talley has retired from the CIA and actually hates the agency. But for the sake of friendship, he agrees to conduct an inde- the sum total is "Dead Air," a -paced novel from the pen of New York Daily News sports columnist Mike Lupica. Lupica, whose only previous book was a sports biography of Reggie Jackson, can write mystery novels full time, as far as I'm concerned. "Dead Air" could be faulted for glamorizing TV journalism a bit, but then real private detectives don't act like Spenser, either. Finley, whose time is partially occupied by his dealings with estranged wife Jeannie Bogardus Finley, is a warm, likable character with personality, an important feature for this type of story.

-Jim Wensits Jim Wensits is a Tribune staff writer. son's violent death Margaret is reviewing her compulsion to fictionalize as she faces major heart surgery. When her illness first is diagnosed, Margaret is sure she will die. As a mea culpa, she begins writing new, fictionalized versions of her past lives as apology to those who were hurt. She writes new chapters, first for her ex-husband, Jack Flood, then for her son Bayard.

The reader learns much through these rewrites. And what is not provided by Margaret's hand is presented by Howard. Margaret's lovers are drawn with bold strokes, their every movement a function of Margaret's imagination or Howard's need to say something indirect about Margaret. Both Howard and Margaret's heavyhanded style are dismissed for Bayard, nicknamed Baby. This sweet-loner-genius has his mother's number, and it is through him that the reader learns about Margaret.

As she recuperates in the hospital, obediently following doctor's orders, Bayard realizes he misses his mother. "Though she is a far nicer person, quiet, always reasonable in her hospital gown, friend of ex-CIA agent pendent investigation to discover how Lawrence Hovey got in trouble. Hovey sits in a Czechoslovakian jail, in the dark about the fact that he has been used and completely believing he has been set up by the CIA. Meanwhile, Talley begins the investigation by interviewing Hovey's roommate, Professor Jane Boudreau. Talley and Boudreau fall in love and begin living together as Talley completes his investigation.

Clearly, this book could have been called "Jane and Talley's Deception." This really isn't a very gripping spy tale and it isn't a very passionate love story. But Ross has a fine eye for human fraility which makes it a gentlemanly spy story. His sensitive, intelligent voice is to be appreciated even if the story isn't particularly memorable. -Gail Hinchion he misses her carrying on. That was simpler: he was used to her stories with their elaborations and stylish epigrams and her voice rising with deliberation as she departed farther from the truth." Bayard is knifed to death under cir- Maureen Howard cumstances that tie together sundry miscellaneous characters.

After his death, Margaret finds she has nothing to write. "For 20 years she has ordered the world, made it accessible, trimmed and fit her stories. For Bayard she has no words. Now she counts herself defenseless, the victim of others' stories inaccurate, vicious, consoling." Thus death is about the only real life Margaret Flood experiences. Thus the trick of killing a child for a climax is taken to extremes.

Howard's book gives lovers of literature a great deal to chew on as it mocks the truth-lies that fiction is made from. There's one problem. Just as Margaret enters real life, in her mourning, Howard's story becomes incoherent. The 50 pages following Bayard's death seem to be a completely different novel. The switch goes beyond Howard's point that Margaret is changed.

It's as though Howard herself has changed and can no longer command her story. -Gail Hinchion THIRTEEN.