THE LIES THAT BIND

Albuquerque damn-the-establishment, marginally solvent lawyer Neil Hamel (The Wolf Path, etc.) finds herself defending aging, vodka-and-Halcion-addicted Martha Conover—the strait-laced, racist mother of her former school chum Cindy—on charges that she intentionally ran over and killed young Argentine ÇmigrÇ Justine Virga on Halloween. Complicating matters is the fact that, three years ago, Justine drove the car that ended the life of Michael- -Justine's lover and Cindy's illegitimate son by the (now) paralyzed Vietnam vet Emilio. Martha's insistence that Justine was murdered by druglords doesn't hold up, but Neil discovers that the Justine had assassinated a sadistic general before fleeing her native country. Furthermore, Cindy's current husband, the unlovable Whit, lost all his assets in S&L shenanigans and now has a scheme or two up his sleeve to recoup his loses—all involving polo- playing Argentineans with bad tempers.... Acid dissection of Albuquerque and Phoenix land-rapes, ethnic makeup, and weather, but an overly complicated plot and, for Van Gieson, surprisingly loose writing.*ju