PRAISE A FINE DAY (179 pp.)Sigrid de LimaRandom House ($3.50).
Time was when a fictional hero sold his soul to the Devil; nowadays the Devil often seems to sell his to the hero. Manhattan-born Sigrid de Lima, 37, has attempted a novel in the older fashion, but before Praise a Fine Day ends, her nameless painter-hero appears more devilish than the odd bargain he makes and breaks.
The expatriate American hero-heel, who tells this story in first-person flashback, has a code of sorts. He believes that arty ends justify ratty means. Setting up his easel on Rome's Spanish Steps, he sketches the pigeons...