Who are the heroes in the flood of books, films and television programs in the information age? Police characters have long topped the list, going back to the early cowboy movies, with the fearless sheriff with his tin star. Crime must have paid for the entertainment industry. Look at the early gangster movies such as Scarface, right up to the marvellous British TV seriesWycliffe, Prime Suspect, Inspector Morse, A Touch of Frost ­ ad infinitum.

Lawyers have been featured in heroic roles ranging from Perry Mason and Anatomy Of A Murder, to Law & Order andThe Practice. Professional lawyers who write are also most prolific, with talented authors such as John Grisham, who wrote The Firm and other best sellers, some made into movies. In Britain, John Mortimer is renowned both as a barrister and writer. His TV works include Rumpole of the Bailey. These joint roles really should be no surprise. Lawyers, like screenwriters and playwrights, base their profession on the use of language.

Medical doctors are consistently pre-eminent in our books and on our screens ­ politicians also, but usually in a pejorative role. Architects are seldom featured except in roles where their status is important to the plot, yet little is displayed about the realities of their work. Coroners are very popular in the UK and North America in spite of plying a craft, which in real life, would quickly separate viewers from their dinners.

Publishers are rarely featured. One notable exception is Orson Welles' sensational Citizen Kane recently voted the best movie of all time. As with the real life Randolph Hearst, the publisher is shown demonstrating his flagrant abuse of power. Dentists are rarely shown except as props in such movies as 10, which became the only number to express adjectival as well as numerical values in our language. An old film on the life of Madame Curie is the only film I can recall about a chemist and she had to win two Nobel Prizes to attract filmmakers.

But engineers in heroic roles in books, films or television series? Sorry, I cannot remember one. Like Claude Rains in the movie of H.G. Wells' classic The Invisible Man, engineering was almost literally an invisible profession ­ in literary fiction, that is ­ until the publication of The Interceptor by Richard Herschlag, P.E., an imaginative story based on the solid foundation of engineering facts.

It is a story about a massive environmental fraud going on in the sewers of Manhattan. The plot is gripping. A corrupt real estate mogul conspires with a politician to create false data on the treatment capacity of a large sewage treatment plant. The heroes and villains are finely drawn, as are the technical details of environmental engineering which are essential to the plot.

While dealing with modern technology and politics, it does have an intriguing flashback to a 1874 map by Robert Viele which showed a long forgotten stream running below 11th Street and Manhattan Avenue. When sent to inspect derelict buildings to divert him from uncovering the crimes, the engineer consults this old map and finds fault lines along old properties consistent with the stream marked on the map. This gives him a clear indication that the long forgotten stream is still active and a tangible link in the chain of criminal events.

Herschlag describes in great detail, the prevailing construction conditions of an earlier New York. He notes the obvious pride in workmanship. When one of the abandoned six storey properties is described as part of a crime scene, he observes that it was the economics of the times which had allowed lavish use of expensive materials and decorative features.

When the story focusses on environmental engineering, environmental professionals are in for a rare treat. Not only is a huge and complex sewage treatment system described expertly, his scientific data are exacting in their detail, comprehensive in scope, yet woven seamlessly into complex murder plots. The economics of the huge scam planned by developers and politicians are outlined convincingly, making the book a real page turner.

Many authors write sensitively about human feelings, great cities and lovely landscapes, but often lack conviction when they wander into chemistry and science. Environmental chemistry and engineering in particular have been too often misrepresented. Notable exceptions are Neville Shute and H.G. Wells, who were in fact, scientists as well as novelists. Neville Shute wrote about metallurgical fatigue when it was little understood, and a film No Highway ­ based on his book ­ was released just before the crashes of the British Comets, the first commercial jets ever put into service.

H.G. Wells wrote about time travel several decades before Star Trek. He also wrote the legendary Invisible Man. Both these scientist-authors are long gone. These days, accuracy in environmental subjects has often been absent in contemporary news media, while engineers as characters, are virtually non-existent in both contemporary fiction and TV dramas.

Mr. Herschlag is a refreshing change, being a graduate engineer from Princeton University, followed by a decade of employment for the City of New York. As he also worked for a prestigious firm of consulting engineers, he gives the added perspectives of both municipal and consulting engineering.

In The Interceptor, the author gives us a gripping review of political and environmental corruption while dispelling a myth that engineers cannot write. Not since Victor Hugo's Les Miserables has a story featuring a large city's sewerage system been such compelling reading.

The Interceptor is published by The Ballantine Publishing Group, 201 East 50th Street, New York, NY 10022. Order No. ISBN O-345-41742-9, Price $8.50 Cdn. Contact Geoff MacDonald at (212) 572-2389.