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Gary Krist's debut is a novel of nerds. One - Joel - is a wealthy ethical importer (so his buddies all have ponytails), married to Kate, a thirty-something former Chicago cop. Nothing so unusual. Leastways, not until he goes out for groceries one night and disappears from their comfortable Maryland suburb.

The other nerd is a teenager by the name of Evan, withdrawn and uncommunicative but with real computer smarts. He's also the one who just stumbled across a man's headless corpse in the woods behind his house.

And, what with this being a thriller of a certain stripe, Kate is the one doing all the legwork to connect the two rather inadequate men in her life, plunging headlong into a violent, murky world of smart drugs and, given her would-be suitor's keyboard skills, internet crime.

Of course, by the time we hit the home strait we're begging Krist to do the decent thing: let Kate fancy Joel's life of pharmaceutical crime, get rid of the brat and drift off hand in hand with hubby in a chemical sunset. (Or even screw the kid and shoot the drippy spouse, if she has the balls.) But with Krist looking to hone his career, a way cool ending just ain't on the cards.

Once you're over any disappointment though - and for all its genre-level mentality - Bad Chemistry remains appealing. While he isn't about to win awards for his prose, Krist can spin a half decent tale, and his understanding of the net is better than most. If next time out he puts the plot off limits to kids and makes his protagonist a character rather than just a cipher, he might just get this blockbuster thing licked. •

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