A SURFEIT OF SUN

British Sean Graham's short, stinging novel about a mote on the Dark Continent (an island community off of West Africa) is very knowing (he spent ten years there) and has an impudent comic sense. Here the ""Wind of Change had changed precious little"" in the face of preposterously divisive elements, old and new, black and white, Christian and pagan. The Fetish flourishes. Returning there from England is mixed-blooded Sarah Green, with a degree (she's a barrister now) and with ""panties, like real lady."" Also stationed there is Mervyn Starke, a marine biologist, who has enjoyed the sexual attendance of Dede, a native girl, but now falls in love with Sarah. Dede's disappearance and ritual murder (a horrific affair) leaves Mervyn with a protective obligation to obtain revenge, while Sarah, presiding as the local Portia, lets the case go by default; there is no body. Still it serves to totally destroy their future in a hybrid world where neither really belongs-- together... She goes off to get lost (New York- the U.N.) which, conceivably, is just what might happen to the book.