Disappearance of Rory Br

Rory Brophy, an awkward teen, takes a leap off the overpass in his Irish village, hoping to end it all, but he lands instead in the back of a truck atop a load of satsumas. He winds up in Stockholm, quickly adapting himself to the hustle of the street. Dublin writer Lombard uses Rory's dislocation to spin droll tales about varied mythic characters in Rory's native town and abroad--including a dreamily demented girl, Julie Davitt, who inadvertently causes the corruption of a dashing politician, Cathal Callaghan. Then there's Inspector Throckmorton, who's in charge of finding the missing Rory, and perhaps the most poignant figure of them all, Rory's mother, who ceases her perennial preparation of dreadful rabbit stew to begin an obsessive hunt for her son, fearing something terrible has happened to him. ``Perhaps his body had been abused and then dumped somewhere, his skeleton to be found in the foetal position in years to come by a man walking his dog,'' recounts Rory's best friend, the narrator. Thus does Lombard's first novel proceed--from gentle humor to macabre observation. It doesn't quite hang together, but his deft command of high and low life draws the reader in. (Aug.)