BRIEFLY NOTED.(Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground, Mark Twain, The City of Falling Angels, The Pitcher Shower)(Book Review)

The City of Falling Angels, by John Berendt (Penguin Press; $25.95). In his first book since the success of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," more than a decade ago, Berendt follows the same formula: he explores a mysterious, derelict city (this time, Venice), ingratiates himself with its leading eccentrics, and tells their stories. Berendt has a talent for letting characters sketch themselves. This book is less sensational than its predecessor, and the whodunit at the center, the burning of the opera house La Fenice, is really far less interesting than the smaller machinations and intrigues that Berendt finds along the way. The seduction and swindling of Olga Rudge, Ezra Pound's mistress, by the director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, is enthralling; whether an electrician intentionally left a blowtorch burning is not. Berendt is happiest among the city's witty sophisticates and latter-day Milly Theales, and though his story forces him to include a few ordinary Venetians, he does so, it seems, reluctantly.

The Pitcher Shower, by Donald Harington (Toby Press; $22.95). In thirteen novels, Harington has created his own loopy Yoknapatawpha County in the fictional Ozark hamlet of Stay More. The hero of this installment, Landon (Hoppy) Boyd--the nickname is a nod to Hopalong Cassidy--travels from one rural town to another, showing movies to farm families who pay a dime or a dozen eggs for the privilege. Harington's stock-in-trade is a kind of fringe hayseed; he's Faulkner crossed with Tom Robbins (almost every female in the novel verges on nymphomania). His stories are best when they just jiggle along. When he tries to stop and infuse them with meaning ("It was starting to get dark, and the dark helped his illusions"), they falter.

Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground, by Robert D. Kaplan ...