Books: Mr. White's Confession

Clark writes novels that could be movies in which Henry Fonda and Robert Mitchum steal scenes from each other. His 1997 debut, In the Deep Midwinter, established him as a sensitive and forgiving spinner of sepia-colored tales that find the tenderness in men. His new book is more of a morality tale dressed as a murder mystery. Mr. White is a painfully shy salesclerk who photographs showgirls in his room; his alter ego, Wesley Horner, is an anguished cop with unsolved mysteries of his own. As dime-a-dance girls start showing up dead in St. Paul, Minn., in 1939, the men's paths intersect, and a story of guilt and innocence turns into a pulsing tale of redemption and original goodness, pitting God against the devil. If Mr. White's Confession occasionally feels like an old-time movie, at least it's the kind of decent Capraesque affair that used to fill the seats at the Majestic.

--By Pico Iyer