Muskrat Courage

Two neo-yuppies lose their beloved child in this lethargic, almost motionless mystery from the pseudonymous Lawson (Would It Kill You to Smile?). Will Keats lives with his girlfriend, Adrienne, and her eight-year-old daughter, Olivia. When Olivia is kidnapped, the evidence initially points to Polk James, a down-and-out working-class local with a blue pickup truck. But when Polk is found shot dead behind the wheel of his truck, the investigation begins to point toward Byron, Adrienne's former husband (and Olivia's biological father)--a violent man who lives with a stripper, illegally hunts protected animals, occasionally works for a big-time criminal named Errol Kingston and generally exudes a fair measure of surly redneck charm. Lawson (who's actually two people writing collaboratively) provides so few suspects that the novel is stripped clean of nearly all suspense. Similarly, it's hard to feel sympathetic toward Will and Adrienne, who are utterly charmless. Both the well-drawn setting (rural Georgia, close to the swamplands) and the circumstances (a truly nasty crime) could be ingredients in a deeply resonant story--but here they aren't. (June)