Rules of the Knife Fight

The third novel by the author of A Dime to Dance By is a powerful and gracefully written, cleverly structured story that displays his remarkable facility with dialogue and character. Although on one level this is a taut murder mystery, it is more an exploration of morality and circumstance, with astonishing surprises in store for the reader. Walker's central theme seems to be that despite everything, the truth will assert itself. The story is told from five points of view: Bobby O'Berry, a punk from Portshead, Mass., who is bullied into marriage by the brothers of his pregnant bride; attorney Chris Cage, who quits his job to defend his wealthy friends Leigh and Cathy Rossville in an unusual civil suit brought by Owen Carr, a hustling private detective who cleverly deduces the truth; and finally Roger Gifford, a judge whose job has left him estranged from his family. ""In litigation,'' Chris explains to Leigh, ``You have what actually happened, . . . what the witnesses say happened, and . . . what the jury decides happened. Now you tell me . . . which one's reality?'' This is compulsive reading. (October 8)