The Dividing Line: 2a Novel

A criminal lawyer in Arizona, Parrish draws on the history of his home state to provide a colorful backdrop for his absorbing second novel (after Our Choice of Gods ), a brisk, tightly plotted thriller/courtroom drama. In 1946, after his wife is killed in an accident, Jewish lawyer and wounded war veteran Joshua Rabb takes a job with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and moves with his two children to Tucson, Ariz., hoping that the arid Southwestern environment will restore his body and soul. He finds a squalid town of 25,000 Mexican Catholics and 15,000 ``redneck Baptists,'' none of whom want to mix with the nearby Papago Indians, whose reservation is separated from Tucson by a narrow irrigation ditch--the ``dividing line'' of the title. A 13-year-old girl's corpse was discovered in that ditch two days before Rabb's arrival, and soon other bodies are unearthed. The New York-bred lawyer finds himself ostracized by the town's residents for defending a Papago man charged with murder and rape; then he becomes embroiled in a plot involving blackmail, crooked politicians and land grabs. Energetically told, the narrative provides an interesting, well-rounded protagonist in Rabb, whose return is promised in a sequel to be published in 1994. ( Mar. )