COLAPINTO'S noirish thriller didn't please some critics, who felt the author was straining for effect. True, this is at times a self-consciously written novel, yet it is still easy to concur with Stephen King's valuable commendation - "a thriller worthy of Hitchcock".

Cal Cunningham, a penniless Manhattan bookstore clerk, dreams of being a writer without ever producing a word, while in the adjacent room his colourless flatmate Stewart rattles away at an old typewriter.

When Stewart dies in a cycling accident, Cal assumes authorship of his dead flatmate's novel, Almost Like Suicide (a title lifted from the Elvis Costello song, New Amsterdam). The novel is published and Cal instantly becomes a revered first-time author, courted by publishers and film companies. His whole life is then built on a lie, down even to his marriage to the graceful Janet.

Deception breeds deception, and gradually the increasingly desperate Cal is moved to consider murder as a way to silence the one person who knows the truth. Succinct and with a knowing sense of irony, About The Author might occasionally dwell too much on the mechanics and meaning of authorship, but it works very well as a suspenseful thriller that has a satisfying way with unstoppable events.

Updated: 09:14 Wednesday, September 04, 2002