Publishers Weekly,Though it comes highly heralded, with foreign rights already sold, Coovelis's debut novel is a workmanlike narrative derivative of much that's already on the market--fiction overburdened with portentous hints about a crime, a lost love and the revelation of buried memories. Narrator Marvin Stone seeks to discover the truth about his sister Elizabeth, who fled her husband, child and family, changed her name to Gloria and took up with an unsavory real estate salesman, who killed her. When the murderer confessed, however, he implicated Gloria in the deaths of three other women. Several years later, still suffering from his own, gradually revealed guilt over Gloria's demise, Stone is approached by aggressive sociology professor Lauren Ogilvie, who wants to write a book on the case, claiming that the murderer's accusations made Gloria a victim a second time in court. Stone and Lauren become lovers as he helps her reconstruct Gloria's life, meanwhile protecting his own secret, which turns out to be as predictable as the entire narrative. Studiously spelled out symbols (``It was like Gloria was Lauren's shadow''), pop psychologizing, gnomic statements (``She gave him all of herself and none of herself'') and synthetic--sometimes patently ridiculous--dialogue lead to a denouement that readers will see coming a mile off, even if they haven't read the umpteen current books about child abuse. In the end, ``mysterious'' Gloria is about as interesting as a glass of water. QPB selection. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
