SCREAM IN SILENCE

In Lincoln Prairie, Illinois, the salt-and-pepper law-enforcement team of Vic Jessenovik (salt) and Marti MacAlister (pepper) is head over shakers in rampant rascality. To begin with, there’s a mad bomber-arsonist who’s causing things to go burn in the night. Then there’s the seemingly senseless murder of a woman who was once Vic’s much disliked schoolmate. Only the most naãve readers will join the characters in assuming that these matters are unconnected. In the meantime, there’s trouble on Marti’s domestic front'not major-league trouble, just a smidgen of the obligatory aggro fictional adolescents are required to generate these days. To compensate, however, there’s the idyllic experience Marti is having with her bridegroom, fireman Ben Walker. In the throes of frequent erotic paroxysms, they smear each other with vanilla extract, behavior regarded fondly by the rest of the MacAlister family as the sign of a flourishing relationship. And the relationship is still flourishing'it only seems as if Marti and Ben have had more than enough time to grow old together'when solutions are provided and culprits identified. Vic goes home to his very sick wife, Marti to her frisky Ben and the pervasive odor of vanilla. Each new series entry (Tell No Tales, 1999, etc.) is slower than the last, the tone flatter, the mystery-mongering more hushed, so that now, despite the alarmist title, even bigotry seems lulled asleep. (Author tour)