CORRIDO

This whirlwind of a first novel tracks the affair between a Columbia University linguistics teacher and a small-time New Mexico thug. What attracts Molly Veeka, who regularly sees the ghosts of her parents and her dead husband, to Goliath C. Flanagan, who constantly puts them both in danger with his illegal drug trafficking and assorted peccadilloes, seems to be the intoxicating cocktail of sex and death. Keifetz's language often thrills (''My ears were clogged up with the sound of his cracking skull''), as does her black humor. But the story flies on the strength of its characters, an unforgettable assemblage of sad and sweaty losers who crack jokes as they skate along the outer edge of sanity. B+