THRILLERS

Mission Road

By Rick Riordan (Bantam, $24). Grade: A-

Tres Navarre is a P.I. in San Antonio, where he's lived all his life. Now his eventful past is about to come full circle and involve everyone he cares about most. When his old friend, Ralph Arguello, appears at his home covered in blood and with the police right behind him, Tres doesn't have to think. He and Ralph escape the cops, but without money or weapons.

Ralph has a criminal past that he had forsaken when he married a San Antonio policewoman named Ana DeLeon. Now Ana has been shot and is near death, and the police are sure her wayward husband was the shooter. Tres knows that can't be true, so with the cops hunting them, he and Ralph start their own hunt for a killer.

It seems that Ana had recently opened a cold case from nearly 20 years earlier that involved the murder on Mission Road of a mobster's son, Frankie White. Frank had been a friend of Tres and Ralph when they were kids, but the ties were broken as Frank grew to become too much like his father. The cops now believe Ralph murdered Frankie years ago and attempted to kill his wife when new DNA evidence arose that would prove his guilt.

Obviously, someone is framing Ralph with faked DNA, which implicates the cops as the source. But why would a cop shoot Ana - unless they were complicit in Frankie's murder years ago? Tres and Ralph turn to an unlikely source for help: Frank's gangster father.

Riordan's Tres Navarro thrillers are the best thing to come out of Texas since the Dallas Cowboys hired cheerleaders. His stories are fast, hard-hitting and infused with atmosphere. They remind me of James Lee Burke's Louisiana stories. Good stuff.

Peter Mergendahl

MYSTERY

Perfect

By Marne Davis Kellogg (St. Martin's, $24.95). Grade: A-

"I always try to wear something I wouldn't mind being caught dead in, because, really, who knows?" So speaks Kick Keswick, jewel thief extraordinaire and the very well-dressed protagonist of Perfect, by Denver's own Marne Davis Kellogg.

The author has truly hit her stride in this series, which she writes with an arch tone and a terrific sense of humor. Perfect is her third romp through the lifestyles of the rich and reclusive - those who have not just money but good taste. It's a fantasy set in a private Swiss resort, with mink-trimmed Bogner outfits, enormous jewels and lines such as "Your sleigh is here, ma'am."

Perfect is Kick's version of "It takes a thief to catch a thief," in this case, a very clever one who has taken a good chunk of Queen Elizabeth's best baubles. Not that Kick, retired from theft but still a highly skilled jeweler, would ever think of them that way - she takes jewelry very seriously, and you're likely to learn a thing or two about the subject. You'll also learn how to dress like a princess and how to quit worrying about your weight. Who knew being a jewel thief was so much fun?

The queen requires Kick's help to recover her gems, and is Kick ever up to the task, always more than a few steps ahead of everyone else. In one morning, she moves into her rental chalet, rewires and reprograms all the security arrangements, paints the new devices so they'll disappear into the woodwork, breaks into a safe, sets up her jeweler's bench and tools, and it's scarcely time for lunch.

Perfect is a perfect chocolate souffle - one of Kick's signature dishes because, of course, she's also a gourmet cook - airy, light and delicious.

Jane Dickinson

UNREAL WORLDS

Magic Street

By Orson Scott Card (DelRey, $24.95). Grade: B

In addition to the Ender Saga and Alvin Maker, two series that have made him one of the most popular writers of speculative fiction of all time, Orson Scott Card has written some superlative individual contemporary fantasy novels. Lost Boys and Homebody are both frightening and gripping ghost stories, and Enchantment, a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty myth, is more entertaining than the original.

So, when a master like Card brings the fairies from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to present-day Los Angeles, readers should expect something exceptional. Sadly, this is not the case.

The story starts in the affluent black community of Baldwin Hills. A college professor watches in horror as his wife becomes pregnant and, with only an hour's gestation, gives birth to a baby boy. Enter a homeless man, later identified as Puck, who puts the child in a plastic grocery bag and takes him away. The woman forgets her experience, but her husband never does.

The infant is found next to a standpipe in a vacant lot by Ceese Tucker, an adolescent loner who takes him to Ura Lee Smitcher, a local nurse. The baby is adopted by "Miz" Smitcher and named Mack Street. Mack grows up knowing he's different, and he soon begins having what he calls "cold dreams" because he wakes from them shivering.

These dreams are the wishes of his neighbors; when the dreams are finished, the wishes are granted in horrible ways. After a young girl's wish to be a fish puts her in her parents' waterbed, causing severe brain damage, Mack knows he must find a way to stop the dreams from coming true, and he succeeds for a while.

Later, it's disclosed that Mack is actually the conscience of Oberon, king of the fairies. When Oberon's evil came close to destroying humanity, he was imprisoned by his wife, Titania, in a parallel earth underneath the standpipe. Now, he's trying to escape, and it will take the power of Mack, Titania and all his neighbors to stop him.

The problems with this story lies in areas where Card normally excels. In his other novels, the characters and dialogue seem effortless and natural. But the black dialect used in Magic Street seems forced, and the author avoids stereotypes to the point of implausibility. In addition, it's frequently impossible to tell whether Card is trying to be dramatic, humorous or ironic. And the mixture of religious and mythical themes never quite rings true.

Mark Graham

CHILDREN

Kibitzers and Fools: Tales My Zayda Told Me

By Simms Taback (Viking Children's Books, $16.99, ages 3 and up). Grade: A-

A kibitzer, shlemiel, shlimazel and a host of other characters hilariously bring to life old sayings from Simms Taback's grandfather's little village in Poland.

Taback, creator of the Caldecott Medal-winner Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, has a unique illustrative style that makes any of his books a visual delight, and his villagers and the details surrounding them in his latest creation are great fun.

Kibitzers and Fools consists of 13 tales, each with a saying at the end. For instance, in one of the stories, Little Yankel wants to know what life is. He approaches his elementary school teacher, who refers him to the rabbi. That rabbi sends him to the chief rabbi. The chief rabbi declares that "Life, of course, is a fountain."

Yankel is baffled. "Why is life a fountain?" he asks.

"The chief rabbi thought about this for awhile. . . . 'OK,' he said. 'So life is not a fountain.' "

The saying at the end of the story lets readers know this is all in good fun: "A sage can also be half a shlemiel (a fool)," Taback writes.

Another story tells of a shmendrik. "This means that he wasn't altogether a fool, but he wasn't too smart, either." Worried about the poor health of one of his two chickens, the man uses the healthy chicken to make soup for the ill one - leading to this saying: "A chicken has no luck. If a chicken lays an egg, the egg gets eaten. If a chicken doesn't lay an egg, the chicken gets eaten."

The stories are told with a wink and a smile, bringing readers slices of village life and human nature. Loads of Yiddish words are scattered throughout, making them even more enjoyable to read aloud.

Natalie Soto

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