Special Interest.

Special Interest by Chris Benson Third World Press, June 2001, $24.95 ISBN 0-883-78227-8

First-time novelist Benson concocts a well thought-out story composed of equal parts political thriller, melodramatic romance and upscale urban mystery taken right out of today's headlines about the evil tobacco industry.

Roving reporter Angela McKenzie, newly relocated to Chocolate City, is juggling a new assignment at the Washington Examiner, and her on-again, off-again relationship with Michael (who remains last nameless for the entire book). While covering a series of Senate Subcommittee Hearings on cigarette marketing, she gets reacquainted with Ronnie Sutton, her best friend from college, a former militant student activist who now runs a conservative lobbying firm. Angela's public world and Ronnie's very private life collide with an assortment of thieving politicos, power-hungry businessmen, and ruthless clergy. Angela and a weak supporting cast of characters investigate a case-closed suicide that everyone suspects could be a homicide.

Benson's prose is well developed and eloquently paced. Unfortunately, the plot is thin and a bit predictable, so it never reels you in. And the sometimes preachy posturing disrupts the flow. The denouement is shocking in its fusion of black history and present-day social issues, but dissatisfying in its unraveling of this whodunit. Benson's publisher, Third World Press, is also noted for publishing works in the 1970s and '80s by authors such as Ayi Armah, Gwendolyn Brooks and Pearl Cleage. If Benson is to write in the company of these literary giants, his second novel will have to move beyond setting potentially intriguing possibilities to fulfilling them.