Out of Nowhere

Marshall's 13th Yellowthread Street novel delivers all the complex plotting and probing characterization expected from this series set in the fictitious Hong Bay section of Hong Kong. Four passengers in a van loaded with plate glass speed down the wrong side of a deserted freeway and are cut to shreds when they crash into a huge flatbed truck. At first Detective Chief Inspector Harry Feiffer can discover no explanation for the accident nor any connection among the victims, all ordinary middle-aged people; the mystery only increases when a bullet is found in the driver's skull. As Feiffer's investigation proceeds, two policemen try to trap a dog that steals Chinese herbs from a drugstore, while in the station house Senior Inspector Christopher Kwan O'Yee takes phone calls from a little boy who says he has a Luger in his knapsack. In his insistent, repetitive prose style Marshall weaves these varied threads into a satisfying inevitable resolution based on a Chinese belief that only those who die with their bodies intact reach heaven. Riveting and powerful, this is the best yet from Yellowthread Street. (Nov.)