Two O'Clock, Eastern Wartime

Several times in his writing career, Dunning (The Bookman's Wake) has used his personal passions and interests as settings for his thrillersDhorse racing, book collecting, the city of Denver. This time he dials up the rhythms of 1940s classic radio (which he profiled in the nonfiction Tune In Yesterday). Despite its exceptional period evocation and character development, however, this effort suffers from ponderous pacing and a confusing plot. Jack Dulaney is a troubled young writer grappling with second-novel freezeup and a mild case of wartime guilt: he can't serve in WWII because of a hearing disability. While working as an itinerant horse walker in Southern California, Jack befriends Marty Kendall, an out-of-work radio actor who has a mysterious connection to the woman Jack loves but can't have, Holly Carnahan. When Marty is murdered, Jack knows Holly is in trouble and follows her trail to a New Jersey shore town. Holly is looking for her father, who vanished while employed as a handyman at nearby radio station WHAR. Jack lands a writing job at the station, where he discovers his true talent as the creator of radio dramas. But all is not kosher at WHAR. Jack suspects some of its engineers, producers and actors might be involved in recent deaths and disappearances, and might be playing roles in a Nazi espionage operation. Dunning catches the excitement and passion behind the artistic promise and social power of radio during that time, but the radio arcana overpowers and ultimately distracts from the book's driving forceDthe murder conspiracy. Yet Dunning fans will no doubt leap for this overlong intrigue on the strength of the author's Nero Wolfe Award-winning past. Agent, Phyllis Westberg. 11-city author tour. (Jan.)