Spotlight

Contemporary Irish politics, the popular music scene and thwarted romance are the key ingredients in Bellacera's passionate if over-the-top second novel (after Border Crossings). Devin O'Keefe, lead singer for an Irish rock group, was mentally and physically scarred by his youth during the ""Troubles"" of Northern Ireland. Although committed to peace, Devin is pressured into marriage with IRA terrorist Caitlyn McManus, who is soon sentenced to life imprisonment and tortured by the British for her role in a department store bombing. For the sake of Devin's career, his manager, Ian Brinegar, persuades Devin to lie and claim that Caitlyn died in the bombing. When Devin meets ambitious American rock journalist Fonda Blayne, sparks fly. Though she is still mourning the death of her twin brother, a policeman shot on the job, she jumps at an offer from Brinegar to travel with the band, photograph its U.S. tour and produce a ""pictorial"" book about it. But there is trouble ahead. Bram Gradeighy, a roadie who is in love with Devin's sister, Bonnie, harbors a mysterious secret. Fonda's 16-year-old sister, Jessie, unable to get along with their father, comes to join Fonda on tour, and becomes overly involved with another roadie. Caitlyn escapes from jail and involves Ian in arms smuggling. And the laws of the Republic of Ireland, which preclude divorce, tempt Devin into proposing to Fonda while he is still secretly married. The overstuffed plot bursts its seams toward the end, and Bellacera's dialogue tends to the mawkish, but fans of unpretentious, no-holds-barred melodrama may be intrigued. (June)