CITIZEN COHN by Nicholas von Hoffman (Bantam...

CITIZEN COHN

by Nicholas von Hoffman (Bantam Books: $6.95) THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF ROY COHN

by Sidney Zion (St. Martin’s Press: $4.95) The biography and quasi-autobiography (Cohn died before completing his memoirs, and his torch was picked up by Sidney Zion) of the infamous Manhattan attorney, political fixer, social bigwig, crook.

The facts of Roy Cohn’s life are widely known: His early career as a prosecutor in New York and later as chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s; his behind-the-scenes power-brokering both in state and federal politics; the swindles and lawsuits that caused him to be disbarred in the state of New York, even as he was on his deathbed, and his flamboyant personal life--right-wing, socially conservative, anti-gay, Cohn was in fact a closet homosexual and denied until his last breath that he was dying of AIDS (though hospital records affirm that he did).

Of the two books, Zion’s is the more scandalous (based as it is on Cohn’s own accounts of his political misdeeds and battles) but Von Hoffman’s is the better book, providing a more complete portrait not only of Cohn but of the political arena in which he thrived.

COTTON COMES TO HARLEM

by Chester Himes (Vintage Books: $5.95) Chester Himes’ novel vividly brings to life the streets of Harlem and delves into the minds of criminals and policemen with equal expertise. He ought to know: He began writing while doing time in prison for a jewel theft.

A voice booms forth from an empty lot in Harlem where nearly 100 people are gathered. The Rev. Deke O’Malley is saying, “Each family, no matter how big it is, will be asked to put up $1,000. You will get your transportation free, five acres of fertile land in Africa, a mule and a plow. . . .”

In fact, O’Malley has only been out of federal prison 10 months and, disguised as a preacher, started the Back-to-Africa movement for his own profit. But his plans are foiled as white gunmen in a delivery truck abduct the $87,000 and hide the loot in a bale of cotton--only to toss it from the truck as their pursuers gain on them.

“Cotton Comes to Harlem” tells the story of how detectives Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, assigned to protect O’Malley because someone wants him dead, chase down the bale of cotton all the way to Alabama--and try to stay alive.

BEN-GURION

The Burning Ground, 1886-1948

by Shabtai Teveth (Houghton Mifflin: $12.95) Winner of the 1988 National Jewish Book Award, this extraordinary work describes the story of David Ben-Gurion’s life up to the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Drawing from documents, press clippings and what official sources were made available to him under Israeli law, as well as Ben-Gurion’s diary entries from 1915 to 1973, Shabtai Teveth has wrought an insightful, balanced and highly readable work of history.

Teveth writes that Ben-Gurion’s singlemindedness and drive came from his utter conviction “that if Zionism was not realized at once, the Jewish people were doomed.” He had purchased and read Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and as early as 1934 told the Histadrut convention: “Hitler’s regime puts the entire Jewish people in danger.”

“Sadly, his fears were fully borne out by the Holocaust,” Teveth writes. “Ben-Gurion found himself in a dilemma that no Jewish leader, perhaps no leader at all, had ever experienced: having to confront, helplessly, the destruction of European Jewry without losing faith in humankind . . . and without abandoning his confidence in the justice of the Zionist cause.”

THE THORN IN THE STARFISH

The Immune System

and How It Works

by Robert S. Desowitz (W. W. Norton: $7.95) Robert Desowitz explains, in layman’s terms, how the immune system works, recommends strategies to improve the body’s response to disease and surveys the status of immunological research.

“The Thorn in the Starfish” begins with profiles of four scientists who paved the road to immunology: English physician Edward Jenner, French chemist Louis Pasteur, scientists Elie Metchnikoff and Paul Erlich. Desowitz discusses AIDS and the problems of immunodeficiency, the effect of smoking as an immunosuppressant and gives nutritional advice as well.

But Desowitz’s most passionate statement comes in describing his own experience in Papua New Guinea (where he conducted research on malaria) and in his plea to immunize the world’s children.

THE DOCTOR OF DESIRE

A Novel

by Allen Wheelis (W. W. Norton: $8.95) “No one becomes a psychoanalyst without worms gnawing at his soul,” writes Henry Melville, an aging San Francisco psychiatrist. Melville is plagued by a recurring dream: A woman beckons to him, “turns, looks back, her head tilted as if asking why he does not join her. And he wants to. Desperately.” But when he reaches out to her, she disappears.

His dream attains a real-life dimension as a new female patient, Lori Savella, enters his life--and falls in love with him. Thus begins the psychoanalyst’s dilemma at the crux of this engaging novel.

The book is told in two parts: The first nine chapters tell the story, while the final five are the analyst’s own heartfelt reflections on passion, desire, life.