Truly Like Lightning

Actor Duchovny’s cinematic fourth novel (after Miss Subways) takes a bucking ride through the 21st-century American West, ranging from Hollywood to religious fervor out in the desert. Former stuntman Bronson Powers has left Los Angeles to embrace the Mormon faith, forging a life with three wives and 10 children on a vast tract of land near Joshua Tree, Calif. But a snake comes into this Eden in the form of ambitious young developer Maya Abbadessa. Determined to buy a portion of the Powers plot, Maya schemes to put the homeschooling Bronson in a bind with the state’s board of education. Three of his children end up placed in a San Bernardino public school. The youngest, 11-year-old Hyrum, is troubled, as is his mother, Mary, Bronson’s third wife. Having chosen to stay with the children, Mary quickly reverts to her old caffeinated, self-medicated ways of coping. Things spiral out of control, epically and violently, after Hyrum is beaten by a group of kids in a school parking lot, and Bronson, swept up in the righteousness of his faith, takes the boy’s fate, and the law, into his own hands. The characters tend to be flat, but the author manages to spin this tall tale exceedingly well. Duchovny’s jam-packed page-turner is just waiting for someone to snap up the film rights. (Feb.)