THRILLERS

Bone Factory

By Steven Sidor (St. Martin's, $23.95).

Grade: A

After reading Steven Sidor's second novel it's easy to believe he once worked as a case manager for the mentally insane. There are enough twisted and deviant characters in his book to stock a good-sized institution. Let's just say, this book isn't for the squeamish.

Booth City is an aging Midwest river town. Down by the river, where flophouses reside and decrepit gambling boats molder, live the dregs of Booth City - the drug addicts, prostitutes and murderers. But the rich families in Booth City are perhaps even more evil and degenerate.

There are a few characters living in this aging Rust Belt city with a sense of justice and a moral center, but even they are facing personal demons. Eliza Ochoa and Ike Horner are homicide detectives called to the scene of a slaying in a downtown park. The victim is just another prostitute permanently out of luck - or so it appears. The victim has been so thoroughly sexually mutilated that they only later learn the victim was a male transvestite.

Eliza and Ike are an interesting and sympathetic pair unlike the stereotypical heroic cops found in many police procedurals. Ike is a large, aging man near retirement who is afflicted with a bum heart and diabetes - issues he is unwilling to face. Eliza is incapable of supporting him in his decline. She has issues of her own, including her father, who is a crooked cop serving hard time in the pen.

The investigation turns up a pound of flesh from someone else when the original victim's apartment is searched. Others begin to die in less than peaceful ways as the investigation switches from the poor side of town to the influential, where the twisted son of a rich family and his companions kill out of sheer ennui. Frank Miller's Sin City has nothing on Booth City.

As gruesome and dark as his story is, Sidor has an almost light and compelling writing style. This tale is a dark classic by an author with a long career ahead of him. Thank goodness - and badness.

Peter Mergendahl

UNREAL WORLDS

Urban Shaman

By C.E. Murphy (Luna, $13.95).

Grade: C-

With apologies to Pete Seeger, who wrote and sang about flowers and war, "Where have all of the editors gone? . . . When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?"

First-time author C. E. Murphy's Seattle-based modern fantasy, Urban Shaman, is potentially a pretty good novel. The protagonist, a female police mechanic of mixed Cherokee and Celtic ancestry, is a spunky, Buffyesque free spirit. Her sidekick, a septuagenarian taxi driver, makes for a lovable straight man. And there are enough violent scenes and near-death escapes to keep readers going at a rapid pace.

Yet, just when the action seems at its highest, the author gives us pages of description or back story. And one would think that any editor worth his salt would have noticed Murphy's annoying habit of having everyone "grin," sometimes at the most inappropriate moments.

Around the 50th time I read the word grin somewhere near the middle of the book, I screamed, and my wife rushed in to see what was wrong. In a tale replete with serial murder and graphic violence, I should have been screaming about something bloodier than a grin.

Here's the plot in a nutshell: Joanne Walker (originally named Siobhan Walkingstick) is flying into Seattle from her mother's funeral in Ireland. Out of the jet window, she sees a woman being chased by a man with a knife - she spots a butterfly knife from several thousand feet in the air through a blurry plane window in rainy Seattle! (No explanation for this amazing eyesight is given).

After the plane lands, a cab rushes her to the scene. Apparently, the victim got lucky and escaped her attacker because Joanne finds her hiding under the altar of a church.

Joanne learns that the woman, who has psychic powers, was pursued by a Celtic god named Cernunnos and his cronies in the Wild Hunt, a tradition that takes place between Samhain (Halloween) and early January. Soon after this, the woman is murdered along with a bunch of other folks.

It turns out the killer is Cernunnos' son, Herne the Hunter, who wants to usurp his dad and run the hunt year round. There's method to Herne's seemingly random carnage, which the grinning Joanne will eventually explain.

Joanne, being of both Celtic and Native American origin, may be able to send the Hunt back to another dimension, because she can use Coyote, her spirit guide, along with her natural supernatural Celtic gifts. And so she reluctantly becomes the Urban Shaman. A lot more folks die, but, since the story is told in first person, I'm not giving anything away by saying Joanne will have the last grin.

Two more Joanne Walker novels, Thunderbird Falls and Coyote Dreams, will be released next year. If a good editor works with them first, they might be worth a look.

Mark Graham

CHILDREN

Little Bear, You're A Star

By Jean Marzollo (Little, Brown and Company, $12.99, ages 4-8).

Grade: B+

Greek mythology and astronomy are watered down to just the right level for young readers in this sweet retelling of the origin of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.

It begins as King Zeus, "way, way, way up high in the clouds," notices a beautiful woman, Callisto, down on earth. Jealous of Zeus' straying attentions, Queen Hera decides to turn Callisto into a bear so that Zeus will stop visiting her. Unfortunately, this leaves Callisto's son, Arcas, without a mother. A kind couple takes him in, and Callisto watches her son grow from a distance.

Arcas learns to hunt, and just before he is about to unwittingly kill his mother, Zeus turns him into a bear. Then he turns both mother and son into stars so they can stay safely together forever. The tip of the little bear's tail becomes the North Star - a star that never moves, even as the seasons change.

Marzollo injects the flavor of an ancient Greek play by having a band of birds at the bottom of each page act as the chorus with sometimes funny, sometimes childlike commentary.

Certainly, some concepts, such as the direction north and constellations in general, will be difficult for the youngest readers. But the story has a magical quality that should overcome those obstacles.

Natalie Soto

COLORADO AUTHORS

Rise of the Silver Queen

By Liston Leyendecker, Christine Bradley and Duane Smith (University Press of Colorado, $22.95).

Grade: A

Hikers, skiers and tourists who have enjoyed the charms and hospitality of Georgetown will like this absorbing history of the town. Begun by retired CSU history professor Liston Leyendecker and completed after his death by historians Christine Bradley and Duane Smith, this book covers the years 1859-1896 when Georgetown originated as a mining settlement.

The authors explain the need for roads to transport mining equipment and the obstacles to extracting ore. As always, they write, "high hopes were made difficult by inferior technology." Yet, each group of newcomers attempted new approaches, and Eastern money continued to pour in after the Civil War.

Below the mines, a carefully plotted town soon arose whose buildings exhibited a sense of permanence. Churches, a school, cultural and fraternal groups, a police judge and a volunteer fire department created a viable community that soon attracted tourists, in addition to miners and newspapermen. Indeed, the famous Isabella Bird praised Georgetown highly for her American and English readers.

Although the population at one time soared to 3,000, Georgetown lost its star standing when greater wealth was available from the Leadville mines and then later when the silver market collapsed. Georgetown "had been born, prospered and declined within the blink of a generation." Today, the authors say, "that mining era has been romanticized beyond its reality."

This vibrant account of a picturesque town includes sidebars that offer additional information, explanations and anecdotes. Hundreds of photos successfully complete the total immersion into the past and offer a new understanding of a vibrant mountain community.

Joan Hinkemeyer

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