The Fan

With this taut novel of an overzealous fan's obsession with a baseball player, Abrahams, the author of such compulsively readable thrillers as Lights Out and Pressure Drop, hits one out of the park. From the day Gil Renard's father died outside the ball field where his son was pitching a critical Little League game, Gil has been rabid about baseball. His favorite player is Bobby Rayburn, centerfielder for the Sox (of an unnamed city) who is himself obsessed-with pulling out of a hitting slump. In alternating chapters filled with telling details, Abrahams gradually reveals these men's diverse frustrations, then dramatically brings them together with a violent act of Gil's that relates to his other fixation: a knowledge of fine knives and knifemaking also ``inherited'' from his father. (It was this knowledge that secured Gil a job with the company that bought his father's business, just as his contempt for their product got him fired.) Abrahams makes Gil's obsessive personality evident from the first chapter, as he ``dries up'' while talking baseball to a radio talk jock. His eventual slide into madness is frighteningly depicted in this finely crafted, edge-of-the-seat thriller. BOMC alternate; major ad/promo; film rights to Tri-Star. (Mar.)