Imagine that there are American MIAs who chose to remain missing after the Vietnam War.

Imagine that there is a family in which four generations of strong, alluring women have shared a mysterious connection to an outlandish figure from Japanese folklore.

Imagine just those things (don't even try to imagine the love story) and you'll have a foretaste of Tom Robbins's eighth and perhaps most beautifully crafted novel-a work as timeless as myth yet as topical as the latest international threat.

On one level, this is a book about identity, masquerade and disguise-about "the false moustache of the world"-but neither the mists of Laos nor the smog of Bangkok, neither the overcast of Seattle nor the fog of San Francisco, neither the murk of the intelligence community nor the mummery of the circus can obscure the linguistic phosphor that illuminates the pages of Villa Incognito.

A female fan once wrote to Tom Robbins: "Your books make me think, they make me laugh, they make me horny and they make me aware of the wonder of everything in life."