PARALLEL LIES

Hyperion, 2002. Good. Pearson forsakes his franchise character, Seattle police detective Lou Bold t, for a railroad thriller that wobbles on its tracks. The hero here is Pet er Tyler, a former Washington, D.C., homicide cop who was fired many say un justly for beating a child-abuse suspect. Desperate for money, Tyler gets t hrown a bone by an old friend who handles investigations for the National T ransportation Safety Board. Handed a three-day contract, Tyler is assigned to check out a messy murder aboard a boxcar on a Northern Union Railroad li ne in rural Illinois. Nothing about the murder makes sense, but more intrig uing to Tyler are the persistent rumors about why so many NUR trains have d erailed in the past year. When Tyler turns up a suspect not only for the mu rder but also the derailments, he quickly finds that his services are no lo nger needed. Helped only by a railroad security officer, the lovely Nell Pr iest, Tyler follows the trail to New York City. That's where he believes th e murderous vandal, who's seeking revenge for the railroad-related deaths o f his wife and twin daughters, plans to sabotage the grand opening of NUR's most ambitious project: a bullet train connecting New York with the nation 's capital. Pearson (Middle of Nowhere) keeps up his usual breakneck pace, and for excitement alone, his latest is good fun.