NEVERMORE

Nevermore ($32.00; paper $12.00; Sept. 1996; 132 pp.; 0-8032- 3912-2; paper 0-8032-8959-6): The fifth novel we've seen thus far from a newly emergent French writer (Candy Story, 1995, etc.) whose hauntingly detailed dreamscapes resemble the enigmatic fictional territories of Kafka and Beckett. This compact tale of political and sexual collusion and corruption is set in a vaguely Western American city (San Rosa) modified by fragments of urban French culture and the presence of a neighboring volcano—and seems to concern the education of a visiting ``deputy'' quickly overwhelmed by forces he's obliged to investigate. This beguiling roman noir is here and there reminiscent of Orson Welles's moody film Touch of Evil; on balance, though, it's another dazzling example of Redonnet's remarkable talent for finding the universal in the unrelentingly bizarre.