FICTION

DREAMING BACK by M. E. Hirsh (St. Martin’s: $19.95; 25 pp.) It’s rare to find any novel, let alone a thriller, that, in addition to a compelling plot, has three-dimensional characters and subtle themes you actually have to think about. “Dreaming Back” is that kind of book.

When jewelry designer Leigh Haring’s sister is murdered in her remote New Mexico house, Leigh’s plan is to claim the body and go home. But soon she’s in way over her head with hidden journals, hostile Indians who aren’t telling what they know and, most important, her dead sister’s boyfriend, Ben Naya, a.k.a. Redbird, who Leigh thinks might be the killer.

M. E. Hirsh’s writing is sharp and a little haunted--perfect for describing the New Mexico landscape. With people’s interactions, however, there’s an occasional lack of clarity, a fuzziness, which makes the logistical nuts and bolts sometimes hard to follow. Is there a person at the window or not? How can she see his sneaker in the rearview?

But in a way that goes with the territory. One of the recurring ideas in “Dreaming Back,” is that nothing is what it seems, from advertising, to family histories, to the histories of our cultures. The death of Leigh’s passionate, radical sister forces her, while solving the murder, to look more closely at her own world view, right down to the jewelry she makes. This book is a psychological, mystical, literary, political, thriller with a family drama on the side. Something for everyone.