Necessary Risks

More a promising first draft than a polished novel, this Turner Tomorrow Award runner-up story about an environmentally minded veterinarian suffers from wooden characters and formulaic plotting. Narrator Nora Holing, introduced as an undergraduate at Berkeley, soon has completed grad school, suffered the death of her first love (a botanist investigating ecological damage in Kuwait) and begun her career at a veterinary clinic in Combsea, a northern California town. Nora doesn't consider herself an environmental activist, but she's shocked at goings-on in Combsea. Every spring, an anonymous chemical company sprays the area with Luminex, a ``verdicide'' that kills weeds and allegedly improves both grazing land and timber growth. It also causes miscarriages, birth defects and other unpleasant side effects in animals. Nora's outspoken opposition bring her up against townspeople whose livelihoods depend on the cattle and logging industries. Timely but insubstantial, this people-versus-profit tale by the co-author of Trauma Center fails to engage the reader emotionally. (Apr.)