cover image Within Bounds

Within Bounds

Mark Lodge, Marc Lodge. Putnam Publishing Group, $22.95 (303pp) ISBN 978-0-399-13881-2

Lawyers and a serial killer--two of current popular fiction's favorite subjects--spark the action in this fast-moving thriller. Narrator Cliff Nielsen, a junior partner at a prestigious law firm in the fictional Southern town of Queenston, is assigned to conduct the pretrial investigation when his boss agrees to defend Travis Keith, an itinerant worker accused of being ``the Resort Ripper.'' Keith claims innocence, but the defense team become convinced he is guilty, which confronts them with the moral dilemma of working to free a mass murderer. Then, halfway through the book, an entirely different dilemma rears its head--about which we can say no more without giving away the cunning plot twists in this well-constructed, highly readable book. The author, himself an attorney, writes a likable, honest first-person narration; his legal anecdotes and procedural descriptions are pointed and concise. The gripping climax resolves the central mystery with a rare, satisfying mixture of inevitability and surprise. The only false note is the murderer's disintegration from total control to total sadism at the end, but by that time readers will be too caught up in the tale for rational thought. A solid debut from a talented storyteller. (Oct.)