cover image THE LAST BOY

THE LAST BOY

Robert Lieberman, . . Sourcebooks/ Landmark, $22 (512pp) ISBN 978-1-57071-943-1

The first half of Lieberman's ecothriller is a taut police procedural. When single mother Molly Driscoll's five-year-old, Danny, goes missing—apparently abducted from his day-care center—streetwise investigator Lou Tripoli jumps on the case and, with Molly, exhausts every lead in the search for the boy. As the days stretch into weeks, and weeks into months, the detective eventually comes to occupy an important place in Molly's affections. So far, so good. But the second half of the book lurches toward the eco-weird: Danny miraculously returns, unharmed but utterly changed. In fact, he's become abrasive and all-too-wise for his years, preferring to wear his hair long, to eat vegetarian and to "listen to the firmament"—which helps him predict weather on the measure of biblical prophesy. Ever so slowly, Danny emerges as a spiritual leader; meanwhile, Tripoli begins to understand that the boy is trying to deliver the simplistic (if not unconvincing) message that "[w]e were all too busy, life was too noisy for us to listen. To listen to each other, to the natural world around us... to listen to our own hearts." At 500 pages, some readers may find that the novel grows a bit tedious—and not only because the narrative moves at a glacial pace and the conclusion is glowingly idealistic. But despite the heavy-handed message, and the unflinchingly straightforward voices Lieberman (Baby) gives his characters, the narrative remains interesting and readable due to the author's skill with language and his ability to engineer suspense and slow-release tension. Agent, Liza Dawson. (Mar.)