Frisco Pigeon Mambo

While novelists have written countless stories about adolescent angst and midlife malaise, few have touched on the vagaries of species identity crisis. But that is the comic premise of Payne's (Youth in Revolt) new novel, which follows the adventures of a group of lab test pigeons (Group C). These pigeons smoke, drink and listen to Maryanne, the gorgeous lab assistant, read to them from The Maltese Falcon. One day, Robin, the narrator, and his cagemates, Petey and Honky, are unwillingly ""liberated"" by an animal rights group. Set down in San Francisco and under the delusion that they are human, they aren't prepared for cars and cats. At first they resort to dancing the mambo in a nightclub to cadge drinks. Then they begin to meet and gather information from other birds. They learn from an escaped parakeet, Bud Gerigar, that they can fly. The trio begin cigarette snatching from pedestrians and raiding liquor stores. As hysteria about ""killer pigeons"" grips the city, Robin's group stumbles upon other freed groups from the lab, notably the girls of Test Group A. Robin also bamboozles a real falcon, Norris, into helping them in their quest to get back to the lab. While Robin scrambles frantically to return to captivity, the reader sees what he can't: Darla, a Group A female, is crazy about him. (Oct.)