Judas Pool

A protagonist so nice he squeaks and a generous sprinkling of purple prose (``a world where a wife became a knife to the heart . . . . There was no solid ground'') mark this promising psychological thriller as a first novel. Thirty-something Steven Black, high school teacher and weekend jazz saxaphonist, likes living in the old family house on the Delaware shore, but his ambitious lawyer wife, Gail, itches for the big time in Philadelphia. Steven's placid world is shattered when a former pupil, Lisa Wood, accuses him of having seduced her. To complicate matters, Lisa is his wife's ex-stepdaughter. Lisa's father and his hulking son, Todd, beat up Steven verbally and physically before Lisa retracts her accusation, privately telling him that her abusive father forced her to lie. (Yes, this is yet another plot that revolves around parental sexual molestation.) Lisa shows her good intentions by sabotaging her father's plans for a major shorefront development but then she--and her father's paper trail--vanish. When her body is found in the Bay, Steven must clear himself, but not before a confrontation with the killer, whose identity will not come as a surprise. Owen has created a sympathetic, if sometimes passive, hero, and he writes vividly about jazz, but sharper editing would help his future efforts. (May)