THRILLERS

Body Scissors

By Michael Simon (Viking, $23.95). Grade: A

It shouldn't come as any surprise that a state like Texas could be the perfect setting for a deeply noirish thriller like Michael Simon's latest. It is, after all, the state with the most frequent use of the death penalty - or consider the carnage at Waco over a decade ago.

Body Scissors has everything noir needs: femmes fatales, crooked cops and clean ones, a shadow atmosphere and a truly heinous villain surrounded, like a black widow with its brood, by smaller ones,

Austin, Texas, in 1991 is reeling from the AIDS epidemic and drugs. A young, black attorney named Virginia Key is setting up for a run at the city council when she's ambushed in her home and her children are shot. One of the children dies instantly; the other is in a coma.

The case is originally handed to Detective Reles, the only Jew on the Austin PD. Reles soon finds himself relegated to second string when word of Key's position in the black community becomes known. The chief puts the only black homicide cop, named Torbett, ahead of Reles. It's apparent that it was an assassination gone wrong, but there are no clues or motive.

Torbett is married, but the young Key has him considering straying. He isn't the only one in over his head with a woman. Reles is living with the widow of his former partner who is also more than she seems. Before the story ends, both men will have been profoundly changed by their relationships.

Meanwhile, a particularly nasty batch of heroin has hit the streets and college kids are dying from strychnine poisoning. Reles comes slowly to the understanding that whoever is selling the tainted dope may also be tied up in the murder investigation.

Fast-paced and suspenseful from start to finish, Body Scissors is as big-hearted as Texas and just as violent. Don't ever miss the opportunity to read a Reles story.

Peter Mergendahl

MYSTERY

The Iron Girl

By Ellen Hart (St. Martin's, $24.95). Grade: B+

This is another mystery series with a niche - accidental sleuth Jane Lawless and her friend Cordelia Thorn are lesbians, and their lives and loves make up an important part of the story.

Jane runs a successful Minneapolis restaurant, while Cordelia directs plays at a city theater company. But their dream jobs just aren't enough to keep them busy, and author Ellen Hart has not one but three intriguing story lines going in The Iron Girl.

As she enters a new relationship with a Nebraska professor, Jane works on coming to terms with the 1987 cancer death of her partner, Christine. In the process of disposing of her belongings, packed up in boxes in her basement, she finds evidence that Christine was somehow involved in a horrific triple homicide. Of course, Jane and Cordelia want to find out just what Christine's connection to the notorious Simoneau murders really was.

Meanwhile, Jane busies herself renovating a rundown movie theater for a new restaurant, and a young woman who bears a striking resemblance to Christine appears out of nowhere, snapping pictures. Greta Hoffman is a photography student, so Jane hires her to document the renovation and finds herself increasingly intrigued - while Cordelia is fiercely suspicious that Greta is up to no good.

Greta, meanwhile, is being stalked by an old boyfriend who can't believe she'd throw him aside for life in the big city, and the guy is pretty scary when he tracks her down to the Twin Cities.

Hart masterfully whips these intrigues together with her sleuths' interesting, non-mystery lives and their sometimes antagonistic friendship - Cordelia is dashing and impulsive, Jane passionate but reserved - to add a fine sauce to a hearty, Minneapolis-flavored mystery dish.

Jane Dickinson

UNREAL WORLDS

A Princess of Roumania

By Paul Park (Tor, $24.95). Grade: A

At the age of three, Maria Popescu is rescued from a Romanian orphanage and brought to America. There, she is raised by loving parents Stanley and Rachel. Stanley teaches astronomy at a small Massachusetts college in a wooded village. All that remains of Maria's past life is a book, a bracelet and a few ancient coins that her adoptive parents were given.

As she enters her teen years, the girl feels displaced and is curious to discover anything that connects her to her heritage. In typical teen fashion, Maria finds it difficult to communicate with her parents and shares her feelings with her two friends: Peter, two years older and a sometime delinquent, whose withered arm and reclusive nature belie his wisdom; and Andromeda, a popular and beautiful girl with a hidden inner strength.

Readers of fantasy will not be too surprised to discover that Maria is actually a princess, the last in a line of benevolent rulers in a parallel world, thus the extra u in the spelling of the title. Her magic-wielding Aunt Aegypta has hidden her in our world to protect her from her enemies.

But those enemies are not standing still. Using their own magic, they transport Maria to the other dimension, but accidentally bring her friends along, and all three undergo subtle and not-so-subtle changes. Maria ages and becomes stronger; Peter grows a new arm, though one that does not match his body; and Andromeda turns into a golden retriever.

Now they find themselves unsure of what to do next, exiled in a strange America with geographical contours that match our own but lacking technology and peopled with strange barbarians.

In less-capable hands, the plot of the missing princess would seem trite, but Paul Park makes A Princess of Roumania unique by alternating Maria and her friends' peripatetic adventures with the political intrigue taking place in his version of Eastern Europe, where three political regimes - Maria's line, the megalomaniacal Baroness Ceausescu and a Nazi-inspired German alchemist known as the Elector of Ratisbon - fight for power.

The result is a powerful novel that should appeal to adult and sophisticated young adult audiences. My single criticism is that the story lacks a satisfying conclusion. Readers are not warned that this may be the first of several books. On a positive note, the stage is set for a terrific series. I can't wait for the next installment.

Mark Graham

CHILDREN

Show Way

By Jacqueline Woodson (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $16.99, ages 5 and up). Grade: A

Jacqueline Woodson eloquently tells the moving story of seven generations of her family held together by their passion for freedom and art.

"All the stuff that happened before you were born is your own kind of Show Way," Mama says. "There's a road, girl, my mama said. There's a road."

That road in Woodson's family began when Soonie's great-grandma was 7 and sold to a South Carolina plantation, along with some muslin her ma had given her. Soonie's great-grandma heard stories of "children growing up and getting themselves free" and learned to sew colored thread into the stars and moons and roads of quilts.

She passed this skill on to her daughter, Mathis May, who later passed it on to her daughter, born free in 1863. The book continues to trace the lineage to Soonie; Soonie's daughter, Georgiana; and Georgiana's twin daughters. One of those girls, Ann, grew up to be a poet and songwriter and the mother of Woodson.

Woodson shows the strength of these women - who moved from slavery to freedom to the civil rights struggles that followed - in lyrical ways. The girls always grow up "tall and straight-boned," and they always "Loved that baby up so. Yes, they loved that baby up."

The illustrations by Hudson Talbott, a descendant of slave owners, are amazing, always incorporating quilts, stitched lines and stars.

Natalie Soto

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