Meeting Evil

Berger's ( Orrie's Story ) powerful 19th novel investigates the familiar question of why bad things happen to good people. John Felton, realtor in a ``medium-sized city'' in the Northeast, is a paradigm of decency, a ``respectable man with a wife and children'' and a ``lifetime urge to do right.'' John's nightmare begins at breakfast one morning, when he opens his door to a stranger and agrees to help with his stalled car. The car turns out to have been stolen and the stranger to have been released from a psychiatric hospital that very morning, and John's Good Samaritan deed is rewarded with a catastrophic day that snowballs into a whirlwind crime spree. After a cocktail waitress sideswipes the car, the three become a team, running up charges of hit-and-run, breaking and entering, theft, kidnapping, arson and murder. Victim and victimizer intertwine in a heart-pounding conclusion at a convenience store, and cosmic justice is meted out. Berger couches his frightening, paranoic plot with moral and philosophical underpinnings in sardonic, impeccable `fluid prose' in previous review prose. (June)