Mystery and religion merge in Howatch novel

Carter Graham thinks the "life plan" to which she constantly refers is right on track when she meets the handsome and mysterious Joachim Betz in the business-class lounge at London`s Heathrow Airport. A "high flyer" as the title suggests, she has a thriving career as an attorney and a classy apartment in the Barbican, and she`s ready to settle down and start a family. She and Kim eventually marry when the divorce from his first wife is final, but their relationship is fraught with questions and problems from the very beginning. For starters, his ex-wife harasses Carter by phone and mail and - Carter believes - trashes their apartment when they`re away. It turns out Kim is a member of a fringe psychic healing group and that instead of growing up in Argentina with a father who had fled from the Nazis, the father was a Nazi himself. It also turns out that Kim is the one responsible for messing up the apartment. The revelations continue until Carter doesn`t know who to trust and what to believe. Since she is estranged from her family, she turns to Father Nicholas Darrow, who made his debut in Howatch`s last novel, "The Wonder Worker," as a faith healer and leader of the Befrienders. She meets him and his female counterpart, Alice, through Tucker, another member of their household who comes to her office from a temporary agency to be her assistant.

Howatch manages to incorporate religious philosophy with unraveling relationships and observations on contemporary society in characters who are always complex and conflicted - and somehow infuse it with humor. This novel, like its predecessor, is reminiscent of the Starbridge series that was based on her studies of the history of the Church of England. The plot is action-packed and thrilling, equally plot- and character-driven. Its true depth resonates only when the story is over.

- Glenda Winders

"The Man Who Ate the 747" by Ben Sherwood; Bantam; 260 pages: $19.95.

Very often the most unlikely plots and offbeat characters are the ones that catch the imagination of readers who are weary of formula mysteries, romances and thrillers. E. Annie Proulx did it with the lovable but eccentric Quoyle in "The Shipping News," and Bobbie Ann Mason pulled it off with the parents of dead quintuplets in "The Feather Crowns." Now Sherwood, whose "day job" is senior producer of the NBC "Nightly News," has created a charming fiction that stars Wally Chubb, a citizen of Superior, Neb., who is eating a jumbo jet to show how much he loves a woman. To accomplish his task, Wally has invented a grinder that reduces the 747 to a powder that he mixes with milk like chocolate syrup and pours onto his hamburgers like ketchup. In one scene, he sprinkles it on his cereal as if it were sugar; another sees him "polishing off the 46-blade fan assembly of the 747."

Enter J.J. Smith, whose job is to verify entries into what is a thinly disguised "Guinness Book of World Records." With his career lagging and his boss wondering if he`s worth his paycheck, Wally`s feat could be the ticket to getting his life back on track. But Wally is resistant, and so is Willa Wiley, the woman he has loved since she was the sole person to turn up at his 10th birthday party. Now she runs the local weekly newspaper, and her feelings about the satellite trucks and TV cameramen rolling into Superior are not positive ones. Naturally J.J. falls in love with her, too. Meanwhile, her best friend, Rose, whose first marriage was to a bruiser, loves Wally for his kind heart.Willa`s brother Blake, who`d like to set a record of his own, also plays a part.

While this scenario has all the makings of a situation comedy, it is anything but. The well-crafted characters struggle with age-old cultural conflicts between city and country, simple and complicated, corruption and principle. Oddly enough, given Sherwood`s profession, it is also an object lesson about the impact of the media.

- Glenda Winders

(c) Copley News Service

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Author: Glenda Winders