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From: Mats Ohrman <matoh@teorix.ida.liu.se>
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From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,rec.arts.books
Subject: DOVER BEACH by Richard Bowker
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Date: 16 Mar 89 17:24:06 GMT
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			DOVER BEACH by Richard Bowker
	       Bantam Spectra, 1987, ISBN 0-553-26810-5, $3.95
		      A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper

     Richard Bowker has written that unusual combination, a science-fiction
mystery.  What's more, he's been successful at it.  He manages to avoid many
of the problems in this endeavor (how to give your readers enough
information to make sense of the book) by setting his work not in the far
future with whiz-bang technology, but in the "day after tomorrow," where
tomorrow just happens to be World War III.  Though only a "limited" nuclear
war, World War III has fixed technology at something approximating our
current level, so you don't discover that the murder was committed with some
new, just discovered weapon, or by the murderer teleporting in from Venus,
which the detective realizes because he found traces of fluxon in the
teleportation chamber and fluxon occurs only on Venus.

     The result, I think, will appeal to both science fiction and mystery
fans.  Science fiction fans will appreciate the care taken in the post-
holocaust setting, including several science-fiction in-jokes and the
interesting use of England as the new utopia to which Americans try to
travel, rather than the usual vice versa.  Mystery fans get a new hard-
boiled detective story inspired by classic hard-boiled detective stories
(said inspiration applying to both Bowker and Wally Sands, the protagonist,
who is patterning his new career after the great private eyes), and the
science involved (there *is* more than just the post-holocaust setting) is not
of so esoteric a nature that the non-scientific reader would not be able to
follow it.  As to where in the store you'll find, that's anyone's guess.
It's labeled "novel" on the spine, so it could be in the science fiction
section, the mystery section, or even the "fiction" section (don't
booksellers realize that science fiction and mysteries are fiction?).  But
make the effort to love for it--it's worth it.

Evelyn C. Leeper   |   +01 201-957-2070   |   att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com
					Copyright 1989 Evelyn C. Leeper