Bone

Chesbro's latest thriller focuses on New York's homeless people, specifically on Bone, an amnesiac named for the one thing he clings to, a long bone. A newcomer among the dispossessed, Bone is suspected of beheading several other vagrants as well as a psychiatrist who offered him help. But Anne Winchell, a social worker, and a giant storyteller of the streets named Zulu believe in Bone. These friends win the accuser, Detective Prettyman, to Bone's side, and he descends far underground with the three friends to battle a raving maniac. It's a scene of sheer horror, but perhaps less harrowing than civilization's slide into the ultimate barbarism that is the novel's implicit warning. The author's uncompromising, explicit descriptions of forgotten human beings speaks out for redressing wrongs before it's too late. (Mar.)