by JULIET WATERS

Brad Smith didn't consciously plan to set a novel in the U.S., he told me over lunch last week. "I got the idea for this book around the time Sotheby's got $750,000 for JFK's golf clubs. And I just started noticing this collectibles craze. I wanted to write a story about someone who was going to discover something that would create a media frenzy. Because of that, I pretty much had to do it in the States. I tried to think of a way to do it in Canada, but what would start that? Sir John A. Macdonald's whiskey glass?" This was on Tuesday of last week, so we had no way of knowing the bidding frenzy that would break out later that day over Jean Chrétien's signature golf balls.

Obviously I'm kidding. But Canadians who are into collectibles might want to consider picking up a first edition of Busted Flush, Smith's latest novel. If he ever does have a breakout American best seller, this will probably be it. And it could happen.

There are some serious blurbs on the back cover of his third novel. Praise from mega-selling American writers like Richard Russo and Tony Horowitz. Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River, calls him "a comet on the horizon." Lehane also describes Smith's writing as "an incendiary example of pedal-to-the floor country noir."

And herein lies the problem in breaking the barrier between critical and commercial success. Smith, who still works part-time as a carpenter in Dunnville, Ontario, explains, "They kind of put me in the crime writer thing, which I don't quite get. They have to pigeonhole you, right?" Yup, they do. And it has been a long time - not since the days of Louis L'Amour - since there's been a big market for what Smith essentially is, contemporary Western.

The collectibles plot sets up that clash between country and city morality that has been the stuff of literature since the days of Jane Austen and Tolstoy, and an endless source of social satire. But this conflict isn't what sends Smith's books drifting into the wrong part of the bookstore. It's Smith's long-suffering loner hero, sucked into a quagmire of nasty clowns, the kind of guy often found in the work of Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen.

The news that Dock Bass has inherited a farm comes just in time. He's had his fill of life as a real estate agent in upstate New York where, increasingly, agricultural land is being re-zoned as residential and farms are sprouting more pre-fabs than crops. Bolting on a materialistic wife who could "fill up an auditorium with her pout," and who's probably having an affair with his boss, Dock splits town without the courtesy of letting his suburban neighbours know why.

When he arrives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, wouldn't you know it, there seem to be an awful lot of folks interested in making sure Dock sells his farm fast. Dock sets to work renovating, however, and within days he's found a sealed up room that turns out to be a mother lode of Abraham Lincoln collectibles, including what may be not only the earliest example of sound recording, but an actual recording of the Gettysburg Address. Bring on the mob, led by a hot TV reporter who supplies the romantic tension.

Amy Morris would way rather be steering a Porsche than a horse, and as a modern black woman in the style of a young Oprah, she's more focused on her future than anyone's past. That is until she comes up against Dock's curmudgeonly charm.

Some broad but well-executed comic strokes, like a gangster rapper set on acquiring the recording, and a faux expert on antiques who has successfully slithered his way into a media career, will make this book a good read for anyone who likes their genre writing fast and fresh. Not so old-fashioned as you might expect, and a good investment any way you look at it.

Busted Flush by Brad Smith, Viking Press, hc, 308pp, $32