Where You Are

The true guides in life, indicates Constable (Why Shy Men Dream) in this wry novel, are those who show us where we are inside. The trick is learning that they may show up at unexpected times, in unexpected guises. Lake Stevenson, a 30-something bachelor with a tidy condo in Philadelphia and a smugly tidy life, learns where he is inside from a springer spaniel. Lake has lived and loved with cool detachment, boasting that his work-writing instruction manuals-reflects his highly organized ""inner nature."" Now his rich Aunt Ilsa has died, leaving him her house in Philadelphia's blue-blood Chestnut Hill, with the inheritance contingent upon his maintaining the beautiful stone house in the style to which his aunt's dog, Randall, has become accustomed. Although Lake vows to get around the will, readers will bet on the deadpan hound. Randall unflappably endures a bungled hair-coloring, imprisonment in an attic and a botched dognapping. When Lake abandons Randall in a park, he guiltily comes back to collect him-the dog at last has blown a hole through his new master's icy exterior. Finally, when Lake tries to sell the house out from under Randall, he falls helplessly in love with the real estate agent. While walking through a snow storm, bewildered by everything that is happening, he at last realizes how cold he has been: ""If snowflakes landed on him, they would not melt."" Although Constable's humans can be mawkish, Randall charms. He comes across as a laconic canine Zen master, opening his human master up to the innate wisdom of life by making it impossible for him to stay closed. (Jan.)