MACKEREL SKY

Poor Guy Vidoq: he has no idea what he's in for when he returns to Canada after 20 years. He wants to meet his daughter, Isabelle, and see his old love, Martine, whom he left after he impregnated her (he was 16, she 25)—but this is no ordinary reunion. Martine is a counterfeiter with a wild sex drive and a suicidal streak who's going to get Guy into all kinds of trouble, much of it with his pants down. Isabelle is a difficult beauty, and Harry, Martine's younger lover, would sooner spit on Guy than look at him. Sex, violence and poetic imagery make intriguing bedfellows in Canadian writer Caple's (The Plight of Happy People ) American debut. Martine's and Guy's fathers were smugglers together, and while Guy lived cleanly in Boston, he's back in the game soon enough. Caple crafts an inventive, sometimes frustrating novel, part bizarre domestic drama and part crime thriller, as Guy tries to navigate the world he's stuck in (thanks to injuries suffered after having sex in a tree with Martine). Interesting secondary characters include the fastidious gay assassins, Jules and Jim, who are in on the operation. Caple is also a poet, and her language both sings and suffers for it (" 'Your heart sounds like my mother chopping radishes' " being an example of the latter); this is an unusual novel of intrigue indeed. Agent, Hilary McMahon. (Sept. 22)