ACID

Author of a previous collection (Plato at Scratch Daniel's, 1990) and a novel (Winter in Florida, 1990), Falco writes tense, gritty fiction that portrays ordinary people caught between the claims of ``normal'' life and the lure of the forbidden and untasted. His characters include an aimless teenaged burglar (in ``Radon''), a college student radically transformed by his friendship with a troubled married couple (in ``Ax''), and (in the title story) a reformed drug addict whose old life won't leave him alone. Battling or grieving families, unstable and endangered relationships, assume haunting accusatory shape in 13 pellucid stories that are stylistically akin to the plays of David Mamet or Sam Shepard. Falco's voice, though, is his own, and his work keeps getting better and better.