Glen Duncan's pen is surely dipped in gold, for the images he evokes in A Day and a Night and a Day (Ecco, Jan.) are unobtrusively woven amid the tapestry of disturbingly beautiful metaphors for human suffering. He confidently and disarmingly lulls his reader into a dreamscape of impossible romances and familial loyalties, only to assault any notions of comfort and send you tumbling into an uncompromising reality of contemporary torture. Augustus Rose is a man in a remote place and time being brutalized by a fellow American for some elusive information. He escapes his torture by recalling the women he has loved in his life. His loves are many and varied, and each offers him a sort of deeply humane salvation against his increasingly inhumane fate. Despite the subject matter, Duncan's contemplative use of language makes for a most rewarding read, and his stunningly vivid imaginings have created an exquisite novel.