ANGEL ROCK

This assured, often heart-stopping second novel from Australian writer Williams marks his U.S. debut, and it's sure to garner lots of attention. Tom Ferry, a likable 12-year-old, and his four-year-old brother, Flynn, get lost after Tom's womanizing stepfather, a logger named Henry Gunn, chooses pleasure over parental responsibility and abandons the boys at his work site. The tiny town of Angel Rock is stunned by their disappearance, and another disaster quickly follows when the body of Tom's friend Darcy Steele is found after her apparent suicide. Sheriff Pop Mathers's investigation hits a dead end, but an out-of-town detective named Gibson follows up and delves into the hornet's nest of jealous rivalries that lurks beneath the surface in the small town. The mystery is deepened when Tom Ferry returns without his brother in tow, but the boy is too traumatized by his week in the outback to provide details of what has happened to Flynn. Mathers once again comes up short in his efforts to find the boy, but Gibson continues to dig until he discovers a bizarre quartet of low-life oddballs whose connections to Tom, Darcy and Mathers's daughter Grace slowly begin to tie the two crimes together. Williams deliberately keeps his prose and action low-key in the early going, relying on details of both scene and character to add tension as he brings his outstanding ensemble to life in a unique and compelling setting. The shocking ending packs a major wallop, establishing Williams as a writer with a formidable array of skills, including the ability to twist both his plots and the genre in some startling, unexpected directions. 50,000 first printing. (June 18)

Forecast:It will be hard to escape the arresting cover on this novel: a glimpse of half of a young boy's face, his one visible eye sure to catch both eyes of many a browser.