There is nothing that says a suspense novel need not be well written….

As familiar, even overly familiar, as the form is, it nevertheless allows for wit, cleverness, displays of arcane knowledge, daring invention, and, every now and then, good writing. A case in point is Fata Morgana, by William Kotzwinkle, a fine young writer previously known for such "serious" novels as The Fan Man and Doctor Rat. The title of this new work is taken from the Italian and means a mirage, especially one that is the work of a sorceress or, as employed here by Kotzwinkle, a sorcerer. (p. 23)

[Kotzwinkle takes] us on an almost dreamlike journey. The details seem real enough, but real in the way a movie is real. Though the atmosphere of nineteenth-century Paris is there—the smells of food and perfumes, the mode of dress, the dingy cafés and the great salons—it's as if the author had used a film, Children of Paradise, say, for research….

[It] is obligatory for a suspense novel to provide answers, along with a flashy finale. But Kotzwinkle quite obviously wants to employ the form for the opportunities it provides for indulgences; for escape from the dreary realism, the psychological delving the minutiae of experience, the philosophical anguish of the important novelists. The form allows him to tell an adult fairy tale. And so the possibilities widen.

This sets him well above the more ordinary practitioners, the specialists in modern terror, the revivalists of the private eye….

Kotzwinkle deals in mysteries rather than mystery; they have to do with the practice of magic, and magic is always real in imagination, if not in life. The ending of his tale might seem to be a cheat, yet it fits his theme—and the title. (p. 24)