THE WILDERNESS: A Leslie Stone Novel

In Novak's third broodingly introspective novel featuring Leslie Stone, the troubled former New York City cop who became a PI specializing in missing children finds herself primarily playing the role of an alienated smalltown wife and mother of two daughters, struggling to keep her marriage alive and to maintain a handle on her mental illness. But duty and domesticity take a backseat when news of the discovery of a body at an abandoned petting zoo sparks a fleeting hallucination of a peacock and Leslie's morbid, insatiable interest. No one claims the body, and Leslie's need to learn more is fired by the artfully written papers the old man left behind. She takes a trip to the zoo site, sees strange visions and ends up frostbitten, confused and in a psych ward, questioning her ability to maintain a normal life. Haunted by the graffiti of a peacock, a child's rhyme scrawled on the walls of the cabin and the air of dark mystery that surrounds the death of the old man, Leslie becomes more and more frenzied. A journalist with ties to the case provides crucial information, and soon an old flame resurfaces. Claustrophobic despite its shifting points of view (Leslie's daughters; her husband), Novak's novel repels and fascinates with its story of a woman's single-minded obsession. Agent, Elizabeth Sheinkman. (Jan.)