On a dull and rainy afternoon, in 19th-century Manchester, desperate to avoid the question of ellipses (on which her strict great-aunt Ermintrude is sure to test her this afternoon), Alice works on a jigsaw puzzle, only to find (frustratingly)  that  12 pieces are missing from the picture of the London Zoo. Lamenting aloud, Alice is answered by her great-aunt's very talkative parrot, Whippoorwill.  Prompted by Whippoorwill's increasingly intriguing riddles, Alice frees the him from his cage. Suddenly, in pursuit of the elusive bird, Alice falls into the workings of a grandfather clock and emerges in the Manchester of 1998-a world of automated wonders and inspired nonsense with a distinctly 19th-century flavor. Whippoorwill leads Alice along with a series of enigmatic riddles, and Alice soon encounters a part-man, part-badger named Captain Ramshackle, Professor of Randomology, and the logical side of her own self in the person of an automated garden statue name Celia.  While  word of Alice's arrival spreads and she becomes the prime suspect in a series of Jigsaw murders, Alice discovers, in the unlikeliest of places, in the curiousest of future worlds, one after another of her missing Jigsaw pieces.  Not until she finds all 12 will she get to the radishes of time that will allow her to elude the Civil Serpents and return to her own time. Jeff Noon's previous novels, Vurt and Pollen , have attracted a cult following with their psychedelic science fiction creation of the realm of "Vurt"--a region defined by illusion, dream and drug-induced fantasy. Noon has now decided to link up with an imaginative precursor by introducing Lewis Carroll 's Alice as the protagonist in a new adventure that draws on Carroll's through-the-looking-glass inversions of reality, and adds a Jeff Noon menace and edginess absent from Carroll's Wonderland. Alice finds herself in 1998 Manchester when she enters an old grandfather clock, and soon becomes the prime suspect in the puzzling "Jigsaw Murders." Noon emulates Carroll's crazy wordplay throughout, and even adds his own illustrations inspired by those of John Tenniel , the famous interpreter of Alice. Noon's third novel (e.g., Vurt, LJ 10/1/94) will disappoint his fans and not win him any new readers. Alice, Lewis Carroll's heroine, goes on a third fantastic journey as she travels from her life in 19th-century Manchester, England, to 1998. While dreading an upcoming grammar lesson with her dreadful great-aunt, Alice is more concerned with the whereabouts of 12 missing pieces from her jigsaw puzzle and the stubbornness of her great-aunt's parrot Whippoorwill, who will not return to his cage. Alice enters the innards of a grandfather clock in order to recapture the parrot and emerges in a confusing world where she is the prime suspect in a series of murders. In contrast to the whimsical and inspired wordplay found in Norman Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth and Carroll's two Alice novels, this novel beats us over the head with heavy-handed puns and anagrams. Never funny, never philosophical, the book just meanders on. Not recommended.?Nancy Linn Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle Perez-Reverte, Arturo. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland always seemed a bit peculiar as a children's tale. Its references to pill popping and hallucinations have made it fertile ground for pop culture parody, such as Jefferson Airplane's counterculture classic song "Go Ask Alice." British author Noon has reworked the tale for the 1990s. Set in Manchester, England, in 1998, Alice has traveled to the future through her great-aunt's grandfather clock while chasing a pet parrot. Noon adds a suite of puns to bring the story up to date, including numerous "Computermites" and "Civil Serpents." Inspector Jack Russell and "policedogmen" replace the Queen of Hearts and her henchmen. Automated Alice, an animated porcelain doll, guides Alice through her mystery world. Noon's wit even includes a Quentin Tarantula, a filmmaker famous for his violent, celebratory portrayals of criminal life. Who says the classics are no longer relevant? Ted Leventhal The author of the Arthur C. Clarke Award winner for 1994, Vurt, and its sequel, Pollen (published earlier this year), transports Lewis Carroll's Alice into 1998 and an altogether postmodern, alternative Manchester. Just minutes before her daily writing lesson with her stern Aunt Ermintrude, Alice chases her parrot, Whippoorwill, into a grandfather clock and falls down into a colony of talking termites. The termites scurry about doing computations for a Mad Hatterlike character, Captain Ramshackle. Ramshackle treats Alice to a discourse on the completely random nature of the universe and, eventually, suggests how she might make her way home: Find 12 missing puzzle pieces and solve the ``Jigsaw Murders'' that are terrorizing Manchester. Turns out there's a nefarious plot being perpetrated by the Civil Serpents (No