Blind Spot

The traumatic event at the center of this wrenching novel about obsession and denial happens almost casually. Chicago-area professor Marshall Quinn dozes off in a planetarium; when he wakes up, his three-year-old son, Jeff, has disappeared from his side. As his wife sinks into near-catatonic despair and the police poke about apathetically, Quinn undertakes his own search. He drives around with a picture of Jeff in his car window until a woman in another car recognizes the image. She knows the boy as Davie, the newly adopted son of the Buckleys, a working-class family who lost a daughter to leukemia. As the two stricken families converge, Barrow shows how both derive their strength from the same capacity to believe in spite of the evidence. With a superb ear for dialogue, Barrow illumines the different social worlds of his characters. The main plot line is subverted by a subplot involving a small-time hoodlum and some shady goings-on at the factory, leading to the novel's violent conclusion, but Barrow maintains a haunting sense of foreboding throughout. More a multiple character study than a standard thriller, this novel transmits a memorable message about the imminence of tragedy and the fragility of family. (Feb.)