A Reasonable Madness

This striking, documentary-style first novel, written during Stratton's imprisonment for conspiring to import marijuana and hashish, teems with manic drug-world characters and grasps the ``internal rhythm'' of a complex criminal investigation in New York. The deeply felt viewpoint is that of investigator/attorney Arthur Grimm, Harvard Law School grad and loner, who as a Vietnam vet acquired his mystical devotion to marijuana's mind-expanding potency. Grimm falls in love with the woman he must defend, strong, beautiful Brit aristocrat ``junk queen'' Sonny Byrne-Downes, indicted for running a global ring. When $6.5 million vanishes and the body of photographer Karl Lundgren, a runner turned DEA spy, is found in the trunk of a rented car by Grimm and shady DEA agent ``Zoo'' Zuluaga, the action gets even hotter. Though threatened with a no-parole life sentence, loyal Sonny refuses to snitch to the Feds, but ``like a goddess'' guards her friends--notably sweet, zany rock star Rickie Rude--from the law. An exhilarating prison break is detailed with dreamlike lyricism. While the author's account of a degraded, manipulative justice system may be biased, he conveys it with passionate authority. Stratton's story ``Skyline Turkey'' won the 1990 PEN American Writers' Prison Writing Award. (Nov.)