CROW

John Dietche, framed on a theft charge, skips parole and returns to the isolated New York valley of his childhood and to the one man whom he has the most reason to dislike. Myron takes him on as a handyman with no wages and Dietche leads a non- existent sort of life centered chiefly around his inarticulate love for Myron's wife. At the novel's end, Myron, thinking John has fired his barns, turns him over to the police. This novel of the men who have no place in a society dedicated to success deals with the theme of betrayal in an outwardly realistic yet oddly unnatural manner that does not make for compelling reading.