Customs Violation

The lives of Floyd Beck, customs officer, and of Viola Flury, designer of luxuriously scanty lingerie, seem destined to remain as far apart as denim and panne velvet in the changing rooms at Barney's. But Weber (The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway gradually reveals the ties between Floyd (the most attractive hero since the sexual revolution) and Viola (a woman every man desires and every woman admires), in a coincidence-filled novel that takes succinct swipes at greedy-and-gauche American tourists, piggish feminists, hen-pecked husbands and conspiracy-theorists. Weber creates anarchy as her many subplots swoop between the past (Floyd's childhood and first love affair) and the present on two continents. The plots thicken into one as Floyd's boss, Major Hash, links circumstantial evidence between events in the customs hall at JFK, a women-only pension in Switzerland, a veterinarian's office in Hoboken, a sexy-undie factory in Paterson, an exclusive Swiss cooking school and a very upmarket lingerie boutique in Manhattanand comes up with red-herring soup. Somehow, amidst the truly funny repartee and reader-jetlag from changes of location, the question of who is smuggling exactly what, and whence, and whither, is answered. The touching story of Floyd and Viola's 20-year-old love is compassionately woven into this often raunchy and always hilarious book. (September 15)