World Around Midnight

Just off the southern tip of the Dallas-Fort Worth ``metroplex,'' Midnight is the fictional small town where 40ish Dinah Reynolds returns upon her father's death to serve as temporary editor of the local newspaper. Her stay is meant to be short and uneventful--but turns out to be neither. A host of strange events conspire to disorient and detain her: a semi-celebrity is killed in a plane crash; Dinah's husband leaves her for a frequently disabled motorist; her 83-year-old grandmother decides to marry another resident of her nursing home; most of the town cats begin to disappear; and the end of the world is predicted to begin in (where else?) Midnight. Griffith ( Tennessee Blue ; The Future Is Not What It Used to Be ) succeeds with grace and humor both in connecting these odd and discomfiting events and in making them believable. Reminiscent of Larry McMurtry and Dan Jenkins, her entertaining novel gives us a rollicking view of Texas eccentricity. (Mar.)