Passion Play

This is an apparently early, minor work from a major writer: Matheson, of course, is the author of such genre classics as Hell House and I Am Legend. When struggling young artist Ray Thompson quits his job at Douglas Aircraft to peddle his homemade lamps door-to-door in Venice and Santa Monica, Calif., and meets determined sexpot Clarice Moore, we're deep in James M. Cain country, and we just know that bad things are about to happen. Matheson's torrid, florid prose doesn't help: he writes about ""that hot, raw desire that comes from God knows where and God knows when, that has no meaning and makes no actual sense and gets everybody into trouble at one time or another,"" sounding like Jim Thompson on Viagra. Sure enough, when Ray goes back to collect for his lamps, he gets into a fight with a man who may be Clarice's husband. And when this guy--or somebody else--winds up beaten to death, Ray is the leading suspect. Meanwhile, even Ray's own loving wife, Helen--who not only supports him by working in a bank but also cooks him bacon and eggs for breakfast and does all the chores--is beginning to have her doubts. Readers might have some fun casting the period B movie this could well have been (Gloria Grahame as Clarice? Robert Mitchum as Ray?). Overall, though, this novel is of interest primarily to Matheson completists and scholars. (July)