*Starred Review* Jack Erthmun, 37, is a preternaturally good NYPD homicide detective and a weird man. Unmarried, asocial, humorless, he has a habit of, unless he monitors himself, echoing the last words said to him. He doesn't dream but sleeps like a lump of earth, naked, under a mound of blankets with the heat set so high his upstairs neighbor hates him. Fortunately for his work, he seems not to mind odors that sicken his detective partner, Patricia David. As the pair investigates a series of cannibalistic murders, however, he starts to change. He dreams of his early childhood in the foothills of the Adirondacks, and he makes up jokes. Wright stresses the importance of Jack's origins by frequent visits to their locale in the present as well as flashbacks to Jack's toddlerhood. Meanwhile, the murders continue, committed by perps of both genders. The women, all drop-dead gorgeous, prefer to attack nude, and all the culprits attack so fast that they seem to de- and re-materialize. Jack can move awfully fast, too, Patricia discovers. Wright is justly known as a master of quiet horror, conjuring unforgettably creepy atmospheres without indulging in much mayhem (see The School, 1990). That he can quietly creep you out and deluge you with blood is brilliantly demonstrated by this unsettling yarn, which refuses to answer its mysteries (e.g., what laughing man?). Ray Olson
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