Maniac Drifter

When Harper Martin drifts into a sleepy Cape Cod resort with a mysterious investment plan, he unleashes a firestorm involving the F.B.I., the State Department, the government of Nicaragua, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Laura Marello''s hilarious new novel features a surreal cast of characters, among them the Souza Family (Provincetown''s version of the Kennedys. They were handsome, glamorous, Catholic and doomed"), Voodoo Woman, and a parrot named Sydney Greenstreet. We come to know them all - fishermen, artists, drug dealers, owners of bars both gay and straight - through the lens of a winsome young amnesiac whose own past is shrouded in mystery. Marello''s passion for art and film, seen in her earlier work, helps propel the action forward to its riotous conclusion; her love for the glorious foibles of our human nature, rendered with compassion as well as humor, keeps us caring about what happens." Constance Solari, author of Sophie''s Fire