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The Undertaker's Understudy

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" 'Maybe it's Oakland,' Charlie said.

" 'What's Oakland?'

" 'The Underworld.'

" 'Oakland is not the Underworld!' . . .

" 'The Tenderloin?' Charlie suggested."

Finally, Moore's book benefits from an instructional paradox he cannily exploits. Nothing enhances Charlie's life like death. "Until he became Death, he'd never felt so alive," writes Moore. Embracing what we fear enlarges our souls -- until they can barely fit onto a compact disc. ·

Paul Di Filippo's graphic novel, "Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct," will be published in paperback in July.

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