Eclipse

Stylish and sexy, this French novel could be termed an existential detective thriller. Michel Soler, a suicidal music critic and shoplifter in Lyon, swings between murderous rages and tender effusions. Out of boredom he accepts $5000 as down payment to kidnap 10-year-old Simon, son of a quadriplegic colonel. As ransom Michel demands to sleep with the boy's sister, Michele, a pianist; they fall madly in love. When Simon is snatched away again, Michel turns amateur private eye to track down the new kidnappers. Pieces of the jigsaw include a wealthy Bolivian couple, a Spanish ophthalmologist who has mysteriously vanished, a nubile hitchhiker and a reclusive German pianist with one finger missing, whose memoirs Michel is compiling. Although the narration is heavy with existential baggage, Belletto's Gallic wit and deft literary style keep the reader turning the pages to the shocking, unforeseeable, tragic denoument. (Jan.)