Acts of Love

In Listfield's ( It Was Gonna Be Like Paris ) searing fourth novel, the author leaves her familiar urban settings for rural upstate New York, where a family's troubles explode in murder. Ted Waring shoots his wife, Ann, in the midst of a bitter argument witnessed by their daughters Julia, 13, and Ali, 11. Ted claims the death was accidental, but Julia insists she saw her father aim the gun. In search of the truth, the narrative follows Ted's ensuing murder trial while examining the couple's marriage through nicely integrated flashbacks. Although Ann emerges as the most sympathetic member of a cast of damaged, floundering characters, it is Ted, who exhibits several hateful characteristics as he fights for his freedom and his family, who occupies the center of the book. A sordid twist involving Ann's younger sister decides Ted's fate, but the question of his innocence disappears in a tangle of complicated, often ugly relationships. Listfield's prose is clear and fluid as she tells this grim, edgy tale in which homicide is not always the worst crime committed in the name of love. (Aug.)