Terrorist by John Updike, Ballantine Books, fiction, 310 p., $14.95 (paperback)
Updike doesn’t so much describe his characters as flay them, laying open their sorrow, disappointment, self-loathing, rage, and disgust, but in the end he allows love to redeem them. Love, imperfect, impermanent, and flawed, finds it mark and resurrects itself when triggered even by something as goofy as a child’s smile.

Jack Levy is a near-retirement age guidance counselor at a high school in New Prospect, New Jersey, where there is virtually no call for his counsel. The students are tough city kids with ambitions that go no higher than drug dealer. Jack’s wife is an obese librarian, and he loathes her. Enter Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, a child born of an Egyptian father and an Irish mother, a nurse’s aide who’s raised Ahmad alone since he was three. Ahmad became a Muslim when he was eleven, and he is an idealistic follower of the Prophet. He has no use for Americans and their hedonism. He studies Arabic, gets a trucker’s license, and a job delivering furniture for an Arab owned business. He is attracted to young Joryleen, but he fights to remain pure. Jack takes an interest in Ahmad who is one of the few outstanding students he’s encountered in his bleak world.

Jack meets Ahmad’s attractive mother, Terry, and he becomes acutely aware that his life is slipping away and there is nothing in it that gives him any joy at all. Even as he has an affair with Terry, Jack notes the flaws in her body, a body that is more than 20 years younger than his own flaccid flesh.

Ahmad is called upon to prove his love for God. He is happy to oblige his eager handlers.

Jack’s wife contemplates her unattractiveness with the help of her successful and judgmental sister.

Ahmad’s diatribe against Western society might have been written by a radical imam or any socially conservative American who knows things are heading in the wrong direction, but who feels powerless to affect substantial change.

Terrorist is mesmerizing, thoughtful, and brilliantly done, and it is Updike after all.

Yesterday’s Fatal by Jan Brogan, St. Martin’s Minotaur, Mystery, 321 pp., $24.95

This is a polished, exciting, skillful piece of work by a Boston Globe correspondent about an investigative reporter with courage, brains, and a passion for the adrenaline rush. What a wonderful thing-a book about the new great anachronism, a dedicated investigative reporter.

Rhode Island reporter Hallie Ahern got over her addiction to prescription painkillers, but now she’s working on her gambling addiction. When she comes upon a car crash on a lonely road and finds the body of a young Latina mother dead inside the wreck, she bets the farm on finding out what killed the beautiful Lizette Diaz-Salazar, an immigrant. It looks like your basic car crash, and the small town PD investigating the accident isn’t interested in details like why the woman died in the passenger seat or why the driver’s door wasn’t shut.

It’s a tough time at The Chronicle to be taking on a new story because the paper’s been sold and the staff will be cut. Hallie’s editors aren’t enthused about the Salazar story, but they need something to persuade the new owners to keep the investigative team on. Hallie pushes hard and breaks some rules, but she discovers that the woman may have been part of an insurance fraud scheme operated by the city’s immigrants. The scam is pervasive and implicates doctors, clinics, lawyers, and body shops, and Hallie’s relentless probing has brought her to the attention of the head honcho whose reputation for brutality precedes him.

Brogan does what author, Dr. Michael Palmer does, and that is take a social ill and weave some credible fiction around it with terrific results.

This is a dynamite, pulse-pounding read. I loved it.

City of Fire by Robert Ellis, St. Martin’s Minotaur, fiction, 357 p., $24.95

Lena Gamble is a very young Los Angeles homicide detective at age twenty-nine, and she has a sad past. Her beloved brother David, a rock star, was shot and killed five years ago, his body slumped across the front seat of his car where Lena found him. Lena lives in her brother’s house, and David’s recording studio, which sits beside it, is a constant reminder of his absence.

A killer is brutally murdering women and Lena is the lead cop on the case which involves a copycat killer, a sleazy pornographer, a cop gone bad, and some very old grudges. The clues are few, but eventually they lead to astounding conclusions, and wounds that had started to heal are made raw once again.

Ellis is a solid writer. The action never flags, and the cops’ urgency is palpable. A neglected angle involving a forest fire which is threatening L.A. is introduced, but not fully developed. No worries, however, because this is a page-turner, and the shocking ending will leave you breathless.

Forensics and Fiction by D.P. Lyle, M.D., Thomas Dunne Books, non-fiction, 296 pp., $23.95

If you’re an aspiring crime novelist, you’ll love this book which is a collection of questions by mystery writers regarding forensic science, like can a cadaver dog find a body buried beneath concrete. Lyle is a practicing cardiologist, and he advises writers about death, its causes and effects.

You’ll recognize the names of some of the questioners like Cynthia Riggs (The Victoria Trumbull series set on the Vineyard) and Hallie Ephron, book critic for the Boston Globe, as well as Jerrilyn Farmer, author of the Madeline Bean series.

If you want to know how to poison a hockey player by placing toxins in his pre-game cream, then this is the book for you. Lyle’s responses are accessible, well written, and to the point.

More books…

If you love dogs, and who doesn’t, try For the Love of a Dog by Patricia B. Mc Connell, Ph.D., Ballantine Books, paperback, non-fiction, 15.95. This is a nicely written book about dogs’ emotions and how to recognize and respond to them. There are wonderful photos, good information, and anecdotal material. Fans of the Meg Langslow series by Donna Andrews will be happy to know that her newest, The Penguin Who Knew Too Much is out in hardcover from Thomas Dunne Books. Meg has her hands full trying to elope, fixing up her new and very large Victorian home while coping with refugees from the local zoo. She’s up to her bridal bouquet in hyenas, llamas, lemurs, and penguins, among others, in this funny installment.

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