IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES

A devout believer refuses to disavow his faith and is forced to watch as his seven-year-old daughter is shot to death in this overwrought, overwritten novel. David Robbins, an upstanding, modestly affluent sporting goods merchant, and his daughter, Karen, are attending a potluck supper at the Presbyterian Fellowship Hall, in Shawnee, Okla., when Billy Hogue, a drug-crazed smalltime criminal bursts in. Mayhem ensues, and after a confrontation, Karen is killed. Before the coffin is lowered, Robbins is abandoned by his wife, and the politically ambitious prosecutor seeks Robbins's indictment for second-degree murder, claiming he didn't do enough to protect his daughter. This initially promising premise rapidly deteriorates into a disjointed, wearing series of vignettes, attempting variously to evoke Robbins's guilt, the killer's abusive childhood and the self-serving small-city prosecutor's single-minded resolve to send the grieving, alienated father to prison. Trying to make sense of the awkwardly cobbled together, melodramatic tale is akin to slogging through a morass. It isn't until the narrative reaches the courtroom in the final third of the novel that Remer sustains a limited measure of pace and interest. The denouement is surprisingly imaginative, but it's unlikely that many readers will stay the course long enough to reach it. (Sept.)