WOMEN DRINKING BENEDICTINE

Humor and compassion in almost equal measures invest Sharon Dilworth's second short-story collection with a certain offbeat charm. Consider, for example, the title story, in which three gorgeous models suddenly appear in a small northern Michigan town, drink Benedictine in the local watering hole, and then vanish again, compelling a local drunk to follow them into the wintry landscape--and this is merely a subplot to the main story of a woman trying to kill her husband in as kindly and gentle a way as possible because she loves him too much to shoot or poison him. In "Figures on the Shore," the main character opens her home to two men with car trouble and then watches with bemused detachment as the father and son's bickering culminates in a full-fledged fist fight on her living-room floor. One of the strongest stories in the collection, "Awaken with My Mother's Dreams," is alternately funny and bittersweet as it explores a recent widow's dreams of playing professional men's basketball. Dilworth's voice is original, and she serves up her stories with a twist. These are characters that live on in the memory after the book is finished.