Lux

September 6, 2004
An iconoclastic cast of Cape Cod year-rounders peoples Flook's moody, intelligent novel. Alden Warren works for the National Park Service, counts birds for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, volunteers for Meals on Wheels and daily mourns her husband, a school teacher and dedicated environmentalist who vanished two years earlier. Monty was a known skirt-chaser, so authorities assume that he took off with a lively fellow lepidopterist. Alden herself is not without carnal impulses and succumbs to suitors—mostly unsuitable—who help her briefly forget Monty. The action accelerates steadily as handsome antihero Lux Davis stalks Alden even as he frets about his guilty secret involving her missing husband. Lux works for a nurseryman and has a genuine green thumb, along with a neurological disorder that he's suffered since childhood. Though occasionally too studied, Flook's baroque language—Cape Cod is "a chaotic, fiddlehead topography of dunes"—gives this noirish story a distinctive edge. Alternating between Rabelaisian comic realism and a Wordsworthian passion for nature, the novel provides the reader with a bumpy but enthralling ride. Agent, Gail Hochman. (Oct. 13)

Forecast:
Flook is best known for two nonfiction works that mine similar territory:
My Sister Life: The Story of My Sister's Disappearance and
Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod. Readers who appreciated her graceful take on grim subjects will find more of the same here. New England author tour.

October 1, 2004
Two years after the disappearance of her husband, Alden Warren is dating a married man and working at the Cape Cod National Seashore. Though her mental health is questionable, she has hopes of becoming a foster parent. Unbeknownst to her, Alden is being stalked by a landscaper/handyman named Lux. The author gives the reader (but not Alden) all the grisly details that connect Lux to Alden's missing husband; suspense builds as Lux moves openly into Alden's life. This disturbing novel will appeal to those who relished Flook's dark memoir of her sister's disappearance, My Sister Life, or her chilling true-crime title, Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod .--Keddy Ann Outlaw, Harris Cty. P.L., Houston

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2004
The multitalented Flook is known for her edgy fiction (" Family Night, " 1993) and her meticulous reporting (" Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod " [BKL Je 1 & 15 03]). In her latest novel, Alden, who tracks wildlife for Cape Cod National Seashore and may be bipolar, is still distraught over her missing husband, Monty. Since Monty was a well-known philanderer, the police assume he has left his wife and have closed the case. Meanwhile, Lux, a talented landscape architect who suffers from sudden bouts of false paralysis, alternately stalks and assiduously courts Alden. He also seems to know far more about Monty than either Alden or the police. Flook seems to be aiming for a pitch-black comedy by setting Monty up as thoroughly unlikable, but she includes so many gruesome details about his demise that the premise is bound to make a few readers queasy. Her higher profile as a result of the success of " Invisible Eden " might spur demand, but her early fiction is a better bet. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)