Essentially escapist fare, Murder in a Pig's Eye is more concerned with providing broad entertainment than with expounding complex ideas. Nonetheless, the book's major characters are sharply and, most often, realistically drawn; in them, we may well recognize traits, mannerisms, and approaches to life that are similar to those of people we actually know. For example, Bodie is by nature a physically timid and almost compulsively tidy person; but this latter trait so flies in the face of expected adolescent behavior that, out of feelings of shame, he tries to keep friends from ever seeing his scrupulously spotless room. Bodie's sister Gracie is an ardent horse lover who gives no thought to either boys or her own appearance; she is happiest when she is lying on Yellow Beauty's broad, swayed back, endlessly braiding the sluggish mount's mane and tail. Bodie's mother is a meek...