STASH

Minor vices and poor timing wreak havoc on the life of a reluctant housewife.

This debut novel by Klein owes much to the dramas of Tom Perrotta, mimicking the subdued desire and quiet angst of a certain breed of suburbanite. The focus here is drugs: who has them, why they use them, who’s supplying them, and why America has such a jones for the stuff. Our main prism into this multifaceted tale is 30-something mother-of-two Gwen Raine, who needs a little something to help her unwind. After scoring $500 worth of weed from her ex-boyfriend, an ambitious but unethical restaurateur named Jude Gates, Gwen smashes into a pensioner with dementia, killing him instantly. Though she wasn’t at fault, Gwen soon finds herself on the wrong side of a small-town detective with a mean streak who threatens to charge her with felony possession and endanger her custody of her kids unless she fesses up to who gave her the dope. This story line has plenty of verve, but Klein muddies up the water with a less interesting subplot. Ironically, Gwen’s husband Brian is an executive at a pharmaceutical company, one that is riskily marketing antidepressants as fat-fighting drugs. Meanwhile, Jude is deeply embedded in a scheme to bring massive amounts of hard drugs, not to mention trafficked girls, across the border through Montreal. He thinks it’s the deal that will buy him freedom, but as we all know from too many movies, the deal doesn’t usually go down like it should. Klein has a nimble storytelling style, and readers who dig these types of melodramas will find some richly intertwined stories. If he can learn not to throw in the whole kitchen sink, this novelist will have a promising future.

A very adult remake of an after-school special that’s driven by story, not lessons.