Mortal Remains

Hanson takes the violence and raw, often adolescent, humor of his first novel, Spare Parts, up a notch in this often cartoonish second adventure of Northwest sculptor and Vietnam vet Adam McCleet. At a psychiatric facility in a Portland suburb, Adam is watching his friend, psychiatrist Reeves Washington, use hypnosis to treat a veteran for post-traumatic stress disorder when the patient turns violent and kills Reeves. Although police dismiss the incident as the unfortunate result of temporary insanity, Adam is convinced that the veteran was drugged and being used as an instrument of premeditated murder. Drugs and death notwithstanding, the focus here is on Hanson's cast of colorful characters, which includes, among others, ``Margo the Malignant,'' Adam's sister, who is drawn in the image of a little boy's version of a big, mean sibling; leftover '60s war protesters who make Adam ``want to punch somebody''; and the ``death squad,'' three Vietnam-vet psychiatric patients who create an exploding device that looks like excrement and is dubbed the ``peace movement.'' More deaths occupy Adam before he unravels the mystery behind them and finishes his latest commission--for a Vietnam war memorial. (June)