Unbalanced Accounts

Crisp dialogue, shrewd plotting and genuine wit transform this detective novel into an ironic tour de force. Nick Magaracz, a private eye on the verge of unemployment because of divorce-law reforms, takes a covert assignment with the New Jersey Department of Mental Rehabilitation to retrieve $9000 in stolen welfare checks. He finds the department's staff filled with women whoaside from a statuesque bag ladyare all either divorced, maternal or traduced, and men who are adulterous, henpecked or both. A babbling wino roams the corridors and so does a sleazy convalescent-home proprietor whose criminal sons inspire murder and ineptitude. In this brief parody of the detective genrethe author's first novelGallison spins a strong narrative whose spurts and zigzags betoken an original talent. (April)