Boy's Life

July 29, 1991
McCammon ( Swan Song ; Mine ) hangs this expertly told episodic tale on the bones of a skeleton that becomes symbolic of evil doings in the quiet waters of small-town life. Twelve-year-old Cory Mackenson is assisting his father, Tom, with predawn milk deliveries when a car shoots across the road and plunges into ``bottomless'' Lake Saxon. Diving to the rescue, Tom finds a nude, beaten and strangled corpse handcuffed to the steering wheel of the sinking car. Cory glimpses a sinister figure watching from the edge of the woods but discovers only an odd green feather at the spot. The ensuing search for the killer proves to be a rite of passage for both Cory and his father. Set in fictional Zephyr, Ala., in pre-civil rights 1964, this evocative novel is successful on more than one level. The mystery will satisfy the most finicky aficionado; McCammon has also produced a boisterous, poignant travelogue through a stormy season in one boy's life, peopled with the zaniest, most memorable Southern characters since those of Harper Lee.