THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 7, 1994 TAG: 9409070047
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E7 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: BOOK BREAK
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY ANN G. SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
AT THE SATISFYING conclusion to April Smith's adrenalin-powered first novel, ``North of Montana'' (Alfred A. Knopf, $23) - set in Los Angeles, not the Big Sky state - I cast my mind back to its tough-talking heroine: Special Agent Ana Grey, FBI.
This is a woman (and an author) I could learn to love.
Ambitious, brash, selfish, confident and, at times, annoying and foolish beyond measure, the 29-year-old Grey devours ``Dodger Dogs'' and malted ice milks, swims a mile a day to relieve tension, hard-drives a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda convertible, packs a .357 Magnum - ``Freeze, or I'll blow your head off like a ripe watermelon'' - and angles unabashedly for a promotion. She cop-banters with the best of them, handles men by avoiding them ``at all costs'' and doesn't own a comforting cat. To cap off her profile in courage and independence, Ana's only family, the beloved Poppy, a retired Santa Monica policeman who helped raise his granddaughter, is too egotistical to enjoy her success.
But the beauty of Ana Grey is her lack of beauty, or more precisely, Smith's refusal to describe her physical beauty. Subject, not object, Grey spews forth like molten lava, hot, brilliant, fluid, dangerous and all too real; a seething volcano of messy insecurities, repressed memories and desires, and a whole lotta cheek. Her internal monologue, deep without being excessive or contrived, propels the narrative; that is, when the spirited dialogue or vigorous prose doesn't. What does Ana look like? I don't know. What difference does it make? None. She and her novel are rich in character.
A television writer who intimately knows her California turf, April Smith works inside-out with intense emotion and unflagging action in ``North of Montana,'' rarely faltering with a bow to plot convenience.
After singlehandedly making a bank robbery collar that she cheekily calls the ``perfect bust,'' Ana doesn't get the transfer to Kidnapping and Extortion that she expects. Her resentful (``I would call him a sociopath but he doesn't like people'') Texan supervisor, one of many sharply drawn members of the FBI office ensemble, blocks her promotion with a bad word, and Ana ends up heading a ``test'' investigation into a movie star's claim that a prominent doctor got her hooked on pills. When the screen doyenne, an Elizabeth Taylor-type surrounded by a slick entourage, obstructs Ana in her pursuit of justice, the case begins to reek of Hollywood politics, not criminal wrongdoing.
At the same time, Ana learns from a bad-boy ex-lover that a young Salvadoran woman slain in a drive-by shooting in Santa Monica's Latino neighborhood had claimed to be her cousin. Ana, who was abandoned by her Mexican father when she was an infant and orphaned at 14 when her American mother died, dismisses Violeta Alvarado's claim as a hoax and callously ignores the dead immigrant's two children.
But Violeta turns out to have been a housekeeper to the pill doctor, a Harvard blueblood who migrated with his working-class Irish nurse/wife to Santa Monica's elite enclave north of Montana Avenue, and Agent Grey changes her pragmatic mind. She thereafter becomes immersed in rapid-fire events that expose her personal and professional raw nerves and some well-buried truths.
Smith lightens, while also complicating, the heroine's load of death and betrayal with a flirtatious, and guilt-ridden, relationship: Ana's married partner, Mike Donnato, who redeems the rest of the sexist FBI squad, gives her self-conscious attempts at cleverness ``endearingly painful smiles.'' Their pas de deux is quite appealing. Showing no compulsion to clean up the emotional mess between them, Smith leaves the pair dangling, in a most compromising position. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma is book editor for The Virginian-Pilot and The
Ledger-Star. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
``North of Montana'' is the first novel by April Smith, a Los
Angeles television writer
Graphic
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by CNB