David Bowker, How to Be Bad

David Bowker, How to Be Bad - In Richmond on the Thames, twenty-something Mark Madden owns a bookstore that sells rare books. After the "Son of God" destroys a "dirty" book, he gets into an incident in the nearby park resulting in a wacko punching him in the forehead. The EMTs take him to the hospital where the cops react the same way that they did with the burned book, insisting he is lucky to still breathe. At the hospital, Caro Sewell sits down next to Mark; she was his girlfriend for six months when he was eighteen until she dumped him.

Caro admits she owes him eighteen months as every two years she reinvents herself and drops her boyfriend. To his shame, the mousy Mark still wants her and loves her. Caro teases him about his anal lists that he draws up on nonsensical subjects, but also offers him a test of his love for her. She draws up a list: 1) father; 2) Warren; and 3) Jesus. If he kills the trio she will give him the year and half he did not have with her that she owes him. Although he fears prison, he is obsessed with Caro, will Mark go mad with or without her?

This is a wild thriller that stars a strange lead couple. Readers will keep on going in one sitting to learn whether Mad Mark Madden will choose love and death or the collective safe route. Fans will believe his choice and his follow-up as David Bowker leaves his audience pondering how bad someone can become if the price is right.

St. Martin's, Jun 2005, $12.95, 256 pp.

ISBN: 0312328265

Harriet Klausner