String theater

As in his earlier novels (The Boy Who Drew Monsters), Keith Donohue blends horror, suspense and a touch of magical realism in The Motion of Puppets: A Novel (Picador/Macmillan, $26). Kay and her husband Theo are temporarily living in Quebec; Kay is working for a cirque when she becomes enamored of a complex marionette in a shop window. One night, fleeing the sexual harassment of a colleague, she stumbles into the unlocked toy store and disappears. Told alternately by Kay, who is trapped in a dreamlike world of puppets, and Theo, who is desperately searching for his wife, the story falls into the category of literary-minded page-turners, a rare and pleasant thing.