THE REDEEMER

Fleetwood (Roman Magic, The Beast) has been stretching his slender talent for the cool macabre rather too thin lately, and this is his thinnest variation yet: a passable short-story notion tiresomely fluffed up and doodled about with. Expatriate writer Ben Maciewski--bald, hugely fat--can only create after he has murdered somebody; he discovered this magical cause-and-effect when he accidentally killed a mugger years ago, and he's been killing regularly ever since (""Without a worthy sacrifice he couldn't write""). But Ben's latest murder, in London, has failed to do the trick, and he's convinced that this development has something to do with a new acquaintance, bearded writer Thomas Cranley--who looks at Ben strangely. Cranley must know Ben's secret! So Ben tries to give up the habit, tries to find peace with estranged wife Maria in Rome, Scotland, and Paris. No luck; moreover, Cranley (now Ben's best chum) seems to be urging him to kill again, which he does. . . while Maria goes back to Rome and kills herself (is it because she too divined Ben's secret?). And finally, when Cranley seems to be closing in on Ben to force a confession, it turns out that Cranley's omniscience has all been in Ben's mind: ""He had wanted a redeemer, and he had appointed Thomas Cranley as his redeemer. . . ."" Tenuous, murky stuff: Fleetwood seems to be making it up as he goes along, twisting his basic premise this way and that arbitrarily, patching the seams with purple prose (""Could someone, looking into his eyes, stare down into his depths and see that fish swimming up within him, with its great vicious mouth already salivating?""). Clodhopping work from a writer whose chic decadence can only sneak by when the touch is light and sure.