MYSTERY

Fatal February

By Barbara Levenson. Oceanview, $22.95. Grade: B

A former prosecutor and current Miami-Dade County judge, Levenson knows a thing or two about criminal law and courtrooms, and she puts her expertise to use in her first novel.

Mary Magruder Katz protests when an arrogant man cuts in front of her at the car wash. The next thing you know, she's hired on as the guy's attorney in a big deal and winds up in bed with him - and on the outs with her fiance, who fires her from his law firm.

Mary starts her own firm and lands her first client, a woman charged with her husband's murder in a case that's the talk of Miami.

Final word: Although Fatal February could use more polish, its quick dialogue and quicker plot turns keep the pages turning.

SCIENCE FICTION

Critical Mass

By Whitley Strieber. Forge, $24.95. Grade: A

Strieber is a master of horror, science fiction and controversy. His early novels, The Wolfen and The Hunger, rank among the finest werewolf and vampire works. Recent novels like The Grays take an original look at alien contact; many scoffed at, while others believed, his contention that he had been abducted by aliens in books like Communion and Transformation.

Now, in Critical Mass, he turns his hand to a frightening and believable scenario, as terrorists explode nuclear bombs over Las Vegas and a major European city.

U.S. agent Jim Deutsch and his estranged Muslim wife, Nabila, are too late to prevent the first attacks, and they battle against time to keep half the world from going up in flames. But the real main characters are the bombs themselves, as Strieber describes in meticulous detail what happens when they detonate.

This book is a terrifying look at nuclear terrorism in the same way that Richard Preston's The Hot Zone was a scary look at biological horror: It's too close to the truth.

Final word: If you are prone to paranoia, don't read this book.

-Mark Graham

THRILLERS

The Renegades

By T. Jefferson Parker. Dutton, $26.95. Grade: A

Charlie Hood is a deputy sheriff in southern California who watches his new partner get gunned down by a gangbanger. Terry Laws was known as "Mr. Wonderful" for the good deeds he did in the county, so it's even more than the shooting of a cop.

But what Charlie finds when he catches up with Laws' killer isn't what he expected, and the investigation leads Hood to some dark places and truly damaged people.

Final word: Parker can't write less than a great story. The Renegades is classic California noir. Now that Michael Connelly has moved to Florida, Parker is the best thriller writer in the state.

-Peter Mergendahl

COLORADO AUTHORS

How to Live on Mars

By Robert Zubrin. Three Rivers Press, $13.95. Grade: A

Zubrin's irreverent guide to "Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet" is the perfect stress-buster for these troubled times. If you want to get to Mars "alive, unstunk, undosed and unbroke," Zubrin recommends riding the freight. In space science lingo, that means one of the new "hab modules."

But Zubrin doesn't stop there. The author also offers pithy suggestions for spacesuit shopping. Among other pointers: Don't buy electrosocks because when sweat penetrates the socks' heating wire, the socks "deliver electroshocks."

Zubrin doesn't abandon his reader after takeoff but offers more inventive ideas for surviving on Mars, finding employment and even how to meet a partner for better, for worse, "through dust storm and solar flares."

Final word: With his impressive aeronautics credentials, Zubrin capably blends solid science with delicious humor.

-Joan Hinkemeyer

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