I have long been struck by the biblical story which recounts Pharaoh's daughter's transgression of her father's murderous law to kill all male Hebrew babies by saving a Hebrew baby boy whom she named ?Moses.? When that adopted child became an adult, he murdered an Egyptian, fled the country, and later received the law of Israel on Sinai, one item in which prohibits murder. This novel, ?The Peculiar Transgression Of Pharaoh's Daughter?, is based on that story. Reading it, we are presented with what seems to be developing into a splendid drama whose theme is the eternal strife between Love and...

This comedy is a "Punch & Judy" show of the heart. "Punch," Jean-Philippe Gautier, a remarkably handsome Anglo-Frenchman, is deeply in love with Olympia, i.e., "Judy." Olympia, who is just as deeply in love with him, feels she has been cursed with what she (wrongly) considers to be a homely face and cannot believe that Jean-Philippe's frequent advances are not motivated by a Gallic contempt for Americans in general and in particular for rich American women in love with French heart-throbs. They spend their time clubbing one another because of their mutual misunderstandings, but finally marry...

"The Archer Who Shot Himself in the Back," (69,408 words; 191pages). It begins with a random murder, ordered by an insane "Prophet," interrupting the honeymoon of a pair of newly retired Military Intelligence operatives, and ends with the "Prophet" being defeated in a polo match against the new bride. "The Archer" story concerns the events of the first three months after good guys John Horn and Francesca Flaminare are married. It opens on the (fictional) island of d'Oc located in the English Channel which, like the (really existent) island, Sark, is a left-over from the time when France...

The Fermenting of Johnny Hazan draw parallels between the stages of the maturing of grape juice into wine and the maturing of a boy into manhood. The story begins with a married couple who adopt a male child they do not know was theirs-a child who was conceived during a one night stand which took place twol years before they married. The adopted boy's mother then treats him as "some rich man's bastard," and only discovers that he is her son when he is 22. The book ends with the boy's becoming a mature man who managed to mature his wretched childhood into the wine of that forgetfulness which...

A seriously comic account of the consequences we humans face when we take it for granted that, because love in any of its forms-including love of money, etc.-is "natural," it needs neither shaping nor definition. It centers on a love affair between an economist, Claudia, and a poet, Stafford, an affair which is nearly derailed by Claudia's liason with a neurologist-sexologist who knows nothing of the necessity for budgeting pleasure. The novel concerns the success or failure of its characters to shape, and so place limits on, their passions and desires. Its principal characters include a...