There are those who would summarize six seasons of "The Sopranos" as a man's life illuminated through the perspective of his therapy sessions. It was almost inevitable to conceive that comparison when I realized that Matt Ruff's new novel, Bad Monkeys, is chronicled as the lead character's conversations with a shrink in a Las Vegas jail following her arrest for "killing someone [she] shouldn't have."

The prisoner's qualification is an important one; there are, you see, other people she is supposed to have killed. Bad Monkeys, Ruff's fourth novel and a follow-up to the electric multiple-personality tale in Set This House in Order, allows this seasoned killer to tell the tale from childhood of how she came to be a reluctant -- or not-so-reluctant -- assassin, doing away with "irredeemable persons," those whose death would clearly improve society.

Almost like one of the early M. Night Shyamalan stories (back when they made sense), Bad Monkeys offers unexpected twists and even climactic revelations. As our protagonist is quick to recognize, things are not always as they seem.

Ruff does a wonderful job of dividing his story into delightfully detailed, flowing narratives about Jane Charlotte's life, punctuated with brief vignettes when she's interacting directly with the doctor who's trying to figure out how much of what she's describing is all in her head.

Waiting for the Movie

While none of Matt Ruff's books has been made into a movie, yet, this is one novel I could easily imagine following that path. Ruff writes masterful action sequences that play out in the reader's mind. It may be a coincidence of timing (I did, after all, just see "The Bourne Ultimatum" before picking up this book), but Jane's pursuits remind me of nothing so much as Matt Damon's gritty work as Jason Bourne.

If anything, the vaguely sci-fi-ish Bad Monkeys even at its most surreal is more believable, especially in our post-"Matrix" world, than Ruff's first novel, the 1988 Fool on the Hill. That fantasy, set in the real world of Ruff's college town of Ithaca, on and around the Cornell campus, harkens back to the campus obsession with fantasy role-playing of the '80s. (Ruff says he always wanted Fool on the Hill to "become part of the Cornell mythology, like Richard Fariña's Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.") By contrast, this story seems to be set just "fifteen minutes into the future."

Ruff's tale offers a world, not so difficult to imagine these days, in which nearly everything we do or say can be seen or heard. We can take some comfort in the knowledge that the all-knowing entity isn't a dystopian government, but Jane Charlotte's organization, who've developed visual spy sensors that, mostly, are hidden in the eyes of people's faces in posters, photos, and the like. (You always had a hunch that portrait of Uncle Reggie was watching you. You were right!)

Buying into the Myth

If her jailhouse interviewer seems slow to convince that Jane and her cohorts represent truth, justice, and the American way, we can reach that conclusion more quickly. It's a rare person, even among staunch opponents of capital punishment, who can't admit to even a little sympathy with a group whose purpose is to kill a shopkeeper before he can set his next booby-trapped toy or teddy bear to maim or kill another young victim.

Helping her along her path toward delivering that justice, as chronicled by Jane Charlotte herself, are a host of almost interchangeably (and, I imagine, intentionally) two-dimensional characters. Contrasting sharply is one mentor, Annie, who at first Jane Charlotte dismisses as a crazy bag lady. She turns out to be quite focused when the situation warrants; she has her own reasons for her devotion to the mission. (Note to casting director: please see if Frances Sternhagen is available for this role. She'd rock.)

No need to Suspend Disbelief

The author.

Ruff's settings are just as believable, whether we're visiting a rural school, the out-of-the-way areas of San Francisco, or the controlled chaos of a Las Vegas casino. The author tells us, "I've never lived in San Francisco or Las Vegas, though I've visited both. Since I conceived Bad Monkeys as 'my Philip K. Dick novel,' it seemed thematically appropriate to begin it in the Bay Area. As for Vegas, it's Sin City -- also thematically appropriate."

Asked about the just-slightly-futuristic setting and situations, Ruff says, "Part of the game the novel plays is to make you wonder whether the whole story is a schizophrenic delusion of Jane's. And Jane is not a sci-fi geek, so she's not likely to have the same sort of delusions that Arthur C. Clarke or Vernor Vinge would. She cares nothing at all, for example, about how the technology actually works -- she just wants to know what the maximum range on the death ray is so she can tell when to start shooting."

Whatever game Ruff and his novel are playing, I want to play along. Give Bad Monkeys a shot.

• Bad Monkeys on Amazon.com