<CENTER>A decade before her dazzling breakthrough novel, <I>The Birth of Venus,</I> author Sarah Dunant won Britain's prestigious Silver Dagger award for <I>Fatlands,</I> a Hannah Wolfe mystery.</CENTER> <P> In <I>Fatlands,</I> private investigator Hannah Wolfe, who's independent though not invincible, idealistic but definitely not naive, has taken on one of the less glamorous jobs in the security world -- chaperoning teenage rebel Mattie Shepherd around London. But Mattie's father is paying Hannah lots of money -- more than the job is worth, it seems. Or perhaps not. The girl's father is on the Animal Liberation Front's hit list. But why? When violence explodes, tearing the family apart, this is what Hannah must discover. Her obsession with the truth nearly kills her, wrecking her private life and dragging her into a vortex of lies and betrayal.