ARIEL'S CROSSING

Morrow uses a woman's search to find her father as a vehicle to explore the dual legacies of Los Alamos and Vietnam in his latest, a powerful, multilayered novel in which he revisits a character from Trinity Fields, Kip Calder, who becomes the holy grail of a quest by his daughter, Ariel Rankin. As the novel opens, Rankin is leading a comfortable life as an assistant editor for a Manhattan publisher, but things gets turned upside down in a hurry by a surprise pregnancy, along with the revelation that Brice McCarthy (who also appeared in Trinity Fields) is not her real father. Most of the novel involves Rankin's search for Calder, who survives a bout with illness and a down-and-out stretch when he is taken in by the Montoya family in the remote desert of New Mexico. Rankin's search is complicated by Calder's erratic wanderings, which culminate in an effort to help Delfino Montoya, who worked on the Manhattan Project, recover the ranch that was seized by the government during the military effort. The first half of the novel is near-brilliant, as Morrow sets up a tightly woven network of strong, intriguing characters while crafting evocative chapters about the tumultuous effect of political events on the lives of his protagonists. The novel fades down the stretch, mostly due to overcomplicated subplots, including one involving Rankin and her love interest, Marcos Montoya, while a final confrontation with the government on the ranch is drawn out and labored. These problems aside, this is yet another outstanding, thought-provoking novel from one of America's major literary voices as he continues to explore the issues that made Trinity Fields so compelling and memorable. (May)

Forecast:The sequel elements of this novel may help boost sales. Morrow's track record ensures a solid base audience.