King Leary

Quarrington is the Canadian author of the well-received Life of Hope and Home Game. His success in this entertaining fourth novel is not only creating a memorable character in Canadiens' hockey champion Patrick Leary, ""King of the Ice'' for most of the first half of the 20th century, but also surrounding him with equally memorable companions. There's Clay Clinton, a likable though Machiavellian con artist-cum-hockey manager, and Leary's best friend; gormless Clifford, King's obese, amiable son, who seems to have inherited some of his father's inability to see reality; Manny Oz, King's challenger for the crown who died ignominiously and alone in a hotel room; Blue Hermann, King's roommate in the nursing home, ace reporter and alcoholic; and the hockey-playing monks of Bowmanville Reformatory, where Leary's career begins. In an odyssey that takes the King from past to present, and from Bywater to Toronto to make a ginger ale ``advert,'' the ghosts and half-truths of Leary's life are satisfyingly resolved. (March)