Atmosphere

by Michael Laimo
Leisure Books
$5.99, ISBN 0843950412

Eye-catching covers help sell first novels, and there's no denying the attractive qualities of Michael Laimo's first novel effort after a couple fiction collections (The Dregs of Society and Demons, Freaks, and Other Abnormalities). The cover's lovely, upside-down woman's face superimposed over the Manhattan skyline was a two-row face-out at a B&N I just visited, proving that store personnel know a selling point when they see one. I'm happy to report that what's in the book matches the outside—Laimo's novel is a satisfyingly slick blend of noir, horror and SF, reminiscent of the hard-edged urban tales of F. Paul Wilson and Thomas Monteleone, to name a couple. There's more than a hint of The X-Files here, though it's subtle and rarely distracting.

Detective Frank Ballaro, NYPD, has just closed a high-profile (and bizarre) murder case, when he literally stumbles onto a crime in progress in his own neighborhood. A young man is apparently murdered by a black leather-clad, bald assailant. His dying breath reveals one word: "atmosphere." Between the time he's required to give a statement to old friend Hector Rodriguez and learning that his own case is far from closed since the suspect has made bail, Ballaro feels himself sucked into a vortex of events that ring his detective's suspicion bell loud and clear. Knowing that the murder occurred in his backyard, too near to his college-age daughter Jaimie's routine haunts, he feels bound to help Hector with the increasingly "out there" investigation.

Short on sleep, Ballaro relies more and more on intuition and bizarre clues as they discover that (apparently) a squad of bald men in black have recently taken to murdering young male victims, and not only in New York, but elsewhere as well. The FBI may be covering it up (and why not, these days?). Meanwhile, Frank's daughter begins to notice black-clad bald men on the subway and at school, but they seem more interested in other males—until she herself stumbles into a gruesome murder scene and becomes a quarry.

While straightforward and uncomplicated by subplots, Laimo's story crackles with implied forward motion and smart pacing. Some of the clues are a bit on the coincidental side, but you can gloss over such rough spots by jumping into a good confrontation—and Laimo writes those very well. His horror writer persona accounts for some well-rendered gore—indeed, the mystery of Atmosphere relies on the clean blending of all three genres, and it's a sure fit in Laimo's hands. This is a strong, stylish debut.