Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe SAN DIEGO, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- If you never know what to offer your loved one for Valentine's Day, "Crazy Love" by David Martin is the perfect gift. (Simon & Schuster, $23.00, 284 (fabulous) pages, released date: Feb. 14, 2002.) Wrap it in paper with I love you printed all over it and give it with a kiss. You'll understand why after reading this book. Advertisement Readers familiar with the work of David Martin, author of "Lie to Me" and "The Crying Heart Tattoo," will know what to expect. For those of you who have never read anything by this author, you are in for a treat. The greatest compliment one can pay a writer is to say, "I couldn't put it down, I didn't sleep all night, I just had to keep on reading." This is what happened to me. I picked up the book at 11 p.m., after a very tiring day, planning to read a few pages before going to sleep, and I was still reading at 3:30 a.m. I did not put the book down until I had finished it. Advertisement From the very first page, I was both horrified and mesmerized. Horrified because of the graphic description of an animal being tortured, but mesmerized because of the way the words flowed effortlessly, almost magically, weaving their spell, so that no matter how disturbing or upsetting the narrative, I just kept going on. "Quickly now, Scrudde, the shorter fatter man, grabbed up a pitchfork and stuck the cow's flank. Bear's mouth dropped at the sudden cruelty of it and he once again saw movement -- the cow stretching its neck and raising its muzzle at being impaled -- before hearing the cow's sound, a sad trumpet on this empty-stage, frost-chilled April morning. Bear exited his truck and crossed the fence. More than a fence was crossed of course. To enter that pasture was one of those decisions fat with fate, leading to mayhem. But even if he'd known it at the time, Bear still would've crossed that fence: he was a dangerously uncomplicated man; on occasion he was inevitable." Well, it was inevitable to keep on reading. Martin is so good at descriptions that the most unlikely characters suddenly seem like real people standing there, daring you to either love them or hate them. And the crazy romance between Katie and Bear is the most touching, genuine love story I've read since "Tim" by Colleen McCullough. Advertisement "Crazy Love" is an appropriate title because it describes the quality of their love for each other, but also the unlikeliness of two people, so different from each other, meeting and falling in love. Bear, as his nickname suggests, is a huge man, a farmer with a gentle nature who has a special gift with animals. Katie is a career woman, a city girl come to a small Appalachian town to recover from a devastating illness. They meet in peculiar circumstances and their adventures become more and more strange as their unusual love affair develops. There are moments of wry humor, and moments of intense compassion, chapters that will make you wonder how humans can be so cruel to each other and to defenseless animals, and passages of absolute beauty. Bear will get to you, as he did to Katie, and there will be moments when you will want to reach up and kiss him, the way Katie did when she first met him. They fill a void in each other's life and when Katie tells Bear she loves him, he says, "I ain't never heard it said to me before there was you." "What's that sweetie?" Advertisement "I love you." She pressed her cheek against his wet broad chest and told this man again what he'd never heard in thirty-two years of life, I love you. Bear drank it in like a man knee-deep in a river as Katie said it over and over again, I love you, I love you, I love you. I'm counting them, he told her, and I'll let you know when you reach a million." Their dialogue rings true and is touching without falling into sentimentality. The strength of their love and their commitment to each other are so well portrayed, the emotions so raw, that by the time I reached pages 266-67, the tears were streaming down my face. The cast of characters is wonderful, from the horrible Scrudde (pronounced like Hud, unless you'd had business dealings with him, and then you pronounced it like screwed) who mistreats his calves, to the vet, Doc Setton, who encourages and abets Bear and Katie in their mission to rescue stray and mistreated animals. There are even more wonderful animals: the German shepherds POTUS and Jamaica, the Red Cow, Old Bob, Veep, and many more. They will tug at your heartstrings and make you want to go out and adopt a puppy on the spot. Advertisement This novel is not for the faint-hearted. The descriptions of the torture endured by some of the animals had me squirming and left a lasting impression. But the pain inflicted on Bear by his father was even worse. However, the novel ends on a note of hope, and love, and compassion. If you read only one novel this year, make it "Crazy Love." You won't regret it.
