Into the Valley

Williams ( Crocodile Burning ), a South African drama professor, lets his theatrical roots show in what is little more than a morality play about factional fighting among blacks in his native land. Like its sometime narrator, Walter (one of a full complement of stock characters), this novel seems glutted with the best of intentions. After reading an interview in a newspaper, Walter, 16, is seized with a burning desire to meet ``General Biko,'' the teen leader of a pro-African National Congress youth army defending the Illongweni Valley against rivals who favor the Inkatha Freedom Party. Walter, whose doings strain any suspension of disbelief, hops a train from Johannesburg to Zululand and makes his way to the valley, where he ultimately learns that: (a) journalists don't always write the truth; and (b) heroes are sometimes the unlikeliest people. The narrative switches arbitrarily and clumsily between the first and third person, distracting the reader from the exotic setting and from the front-page timeliness of the plot. Ages 10-up. (June)