The Aerodynamics of Pork

Pork is pig and pig is cop and because this sad, funny, deeply searching novel by the author of Ease is, besides much else, an exercise in detection, its title is justified. Our attention is called at once to 16-year-old Seth, who is both a brilliant violinist and totally obsessed with sex. Next we observe policewoman Maude Faithe, called Mo, who, silently watching a pickpocket steal Seth's mother's wallet, unwittingly joins two strands of the plot. Moving ever more in parallel, Mo and Seth, both gay and fearful of discovery, find lovers and find, too, the joy of declaring themselves. In grim antithesis, however, is a series of tawdry and illogical thefts, culminating in death, always perpetrated on fortune tellers and mystics and clearly the work of the same meticulous man. When Mo is assigned to the case, her fortunes are joined for a breathless space with those of Seth and his family. Plotting, characterization and dialogue quicken the reader's pace, just as the delicacy of the unfolding love quickens the heart. (July 8)