NASCAR book filled with great characters and history

HE CRASHED ME SO I CRASHED HIM BACK

By Mark Bechtel (Little, Brown & Co., 295 pages, $25.99)

Three years of working south of the Mason-Dixon Line in West Virginia didn't make me a NASCAR aficionado. But I love the drama of sports and colorful, flawed characters. "He Crashed Me So I Crashed Him Back" provides both. Sports Illustrated reporter and editor Mark Bechtel provides page after page of real- life, wouldn't-believe-it-if-it-weren't-true drama. He traces the history of racing to the Appalachian back roads as bootleggers tried to outrun the law, and then takes it through to modern-day corporate sponsorship.

Even corporate owners couldn't keep the rebels out of this sport. Bechtel reveals the complicated personalities behind some of the comic book racing personas. The devilish Dale Earnhardt debuts in fantastic form about a third into the book. I expected him to star, but he's only part of racing's ragged past and present. An understanding of NASCAR isn't necessary to read this book, just a fascination with the diversity of humanity which is as present in racing as anywhere else -- if not more so.

ROCHELLE OLSON

NEWS REPORTER

The Murderer's Daughters

By Randy Susan Meyers (St. Martin's Press, 320 pages, $24.99)

Your heart will go out to Lulu and Merry. On the day before Lulu's 10th birthday, their father storms into their apartment in a drunken rage. He kills their mother, stabs Merry and tries to kill himself while Lulu runs for help. The effect of these few awful minutes lasts a lifetime for the girls. Their father is sent to prison, and they are stuck with the stigma of being the kids of a killer. The book follows their lives from 1971, when the killing happens, to 2003. Along the way, they are rejected by relatives and sent to live in a home for girls. They get taken in as foster children by a sympathetic couple. They deal with their father's incarceration in very different ways. They choose careers and have relationships. The tale of their grief and struggle to find their identities is beautifully written. A great debut novel.

JUDY ROMANOWICH SMITH

NEWS DESIGNER